Mercedes AMG Motorsport Team Principal Toto Wolff believes that the hot temperatures the team was subjected to during the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday directly affected their race result.
Drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas also commented on the high temperatures, which they felt made the cars struggle.
“From a fan’s perspective, this was a really exciting race to watch; however, from our team’s perspective it was a difficult day,” said Wolff.
“We said before the race that the high temperatures will be a huge challenge for us and that turned out to be true. Our Achilles heel was exposed, with both drivers struggling with overheating in these incredibly warm temperatures.
“We had to open up the bodywork all the way, turn down the engine and had to do lifting and coasting for long stretches. So, we couldn’t really race with our car today, neither attack nor defend, we were just trying to keep it alive and cooling it properly.”
Wolff recognises that despite the problems caused by the heat, they were still able to finish in the points, but continues saying that something needs to be done to rectify their cooling issues for the next part of the season.
“On a more positive note, though, we still scored a good haul of points and managed to put in some decent lap times despite these limitations. However, it’s clear that we have to fix our cooling problems for the coming hot European races.” Wolff commented.
With a far from ideal weekend out of the way, the the team are now turning their attention to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in two weeks time.
“As we say, the bad days are the ones when we learn the most to come back stronger. And we’ll be looking to do just that at the next race at Silverstone.”
