Mercedes explains its strategy that cost them the victory in France

After the French Grand Prix, Mercedes’ executive director, Toto Wolff, admitted that his team had mismanaged its strategy against Red Bull’s. Thanks to a two-stop race, Max Verstappen managed to win by overtaking Lewis Hamilton (who only made one stop) in the penultimate lap.

« The battle between the three cars (Verstappen, Hamilton, Bottas) was intense at the front and then we had to choose a one or two-stop strategy. The two stops were a danger for us because (Sergio) Perez was there. We made a mistake », said Toto Wolff.

At the end of the Grand Prix, Valtteri Bottas, struggling with his tires, is overtaken by Sergio Perez. However, the Finn did not go to the pits to change his tires in an attempt to set the fastest lap. The Mercedes team principal later confessed that he did not bring in his driver because he believed that the Mexican would receive a penalty for pushing the limits of the track during the overtake.

We thought Perez would receive a penalty for exceeding the track limits, so we told him to stay within five seconds, so it was really a balance between that penalty and possibly getting the best lap. We played, we lost,” he explained.

This choice did not please Valtteri Bottas, who had informed his team that a two-stop strategy was the best. After Monaco, Mercedes once again lost valuable points in the world championship due to poor strategies.

We lost the pit stop race. Thinking that we had enough of a gap against the undercut. We had a solid three-second gap to protect ourselves against the undercut and it wasn’t enough, and from there, we were on the defensive.

We have a lot to learn, we have to understand because they (Red Bull) have made phenomenal moves, why did we misjudge the undercut? This is one of the points we need to look into, concluded Toto Wolff.