Wolff reveals the difficulty when trying to compare George Russell and Lewis Hamilton It was a mixed weekend for Mercedes in Abu Dhabi as George Russell consistently got the better of Lewis Hamilton’s otherwise entertaining performance.
Toto Wolff believes the big swings in the performance of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are “difficult to understand” but has suggested Pirelli tires as a factor.
At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend, Hamilton was unable to produce a W14 series performance. He raced 11th and finished ninth, while Russell enjoyed a cleaner and smoother event.
He qualified fourth and finished third on the podium in his second season, some three-tenths behind the five-time Yas Marina winner. Such wide swings in performance have been common throughout the season, and the trend is not limited to Mercedes but, as Wolff pointed out, to Ferrari, McLaren and even Red Bull.
Wolff is wrong – catching Red Bull is a much bigger challenge than and#039; Climbing Mount Everestand; Wolff asks about the tires; It’s just hard to understand that good leaders in different groups have such fluctuations in performance; Wolff told the media.
You saw it this weekend with [Carlos] Sainz and [Charles] Leclerc, you and; saw it with George and Lewis and Oscar [Piastri] and Landon [Norris] and obviously [Sergio] Perez and [Max] Verstappen. Perez is not a second slower than Max, so what [is the reason for that?] t;We saw it swing both ways and basically I think it’s the grip of the tire around it.
If you get it in a nice place, on a stable, flat surface that you start working on at the beginning of the weekend, you can go on with the show.
When you’re not there and the show isn’t happening, you’re literally falling off a cliff.
I have no explanation for that and the only one who understood driving with those tires this year is Max.
