Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was happy his drivers were finally “attacking” despite crashing in qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell found the barriers in Q3 in similar circumstances after losing the rear end and sliding off the track at Turns 7 and 10 respectively.
Lewis and George were showing good pace in qualifying before disaster struck for both drivers in Q3#AustrianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/QpVsx7mPhl
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 8, 2022
Though windy conditions in Spielberg did play a role, Wolff later explained the accidents were due to both drivers having the confidence to push the limits of the W13.
“I think the car is still tricky to drive,” he said via Motorsport Week. “Now that we can actually fight for front positions, I am really happy to see that they are attacking.
“Lewis, the corner before, was carrying 10kph more speed and made Turn 6, and then he carried 10kph more speed into [Turn] 7 and didn’t make the corner.
“The same a little bit for George, he was up a little bit on his delta time and that was a particular strength of his previous runs and it went too far.
“Whether there was wind or any other conditions, I think the summary is the car is tricky to drive. But it’s faster now and for me, that’s absolutely okay.”
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The damage from the crashes was extensive with Hamilton having to switch to the spare chassis for the rest of the weekend.
“I think we have two floors, two gearboxes that we need to check,” Wolff explained.
“A rear wing, lots of little bits of pieces. In the garage, in the early evening, it looked like somebody dropped a Lego car on the floor. But the mechanics are doing great work.
“Both cars are pretty injured. The floors, we’ve done precautionary checks for the gearboxes, the rear wing for George, plenty of parts – that has cost cap implications.
“But the biggest is the mechanics working around the clock. We hope to have a good car for the sprint race to put us in a good position for tomorrow.”
A week after Max Verstappen had been booed by fans at Silverstone, the Orange Army took great delight in seeing Hamilton find the barriers in front of their huge grandstand.
And the Mercedes chief urged for greater respect to be shown by all.
“I think we just need to speak more to the fans that are cheering when a car is in the wall, or booing for a driver that gives an interview,” he told Sky Sports.
“It’s not what we would do with our competitors and enemies, even though you can think we would have some animosity out there, so nobody should actually do it. We need collectively, with F1, with you guys, to educate people.”
