Mercedes has denied that there is a “fundamental issue” with the upgrades it introduced at the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, despite Lewis Hamilton’s concern.
Hamilton encountered a nightmare outing in Austin as his endeavour to rebound from a premature Q1 elimination ended with a spin into the gravel on the second lap.
The Briton had gained six spots at the start to be running in 12th place on the Hard compound when he lost control at Turn 19 and became beached in the gravel trap.
However, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has expressed that the team hasn’t held Hamilton, a record five-time race winner around the Circuit of the Americas, accountable.
“Today an incident in that corner that came out of nowhere,” Wolff told media including Motorsport Week. “He was not pushing at all.
“So where I sit at the moment it’s 100 per cent not Lewis’ fault and it’s not to say that I’m protecting him. It’s clear.
“It was gusty, there was a slipstream. How does all of that interact?”
Mercedes to continue with COTA upgrades
With team-mate George Russell having crashed in qualifying at the same corner, Hamilton queried whether Mercedes’ new updates contributed to his bizarre incident.
Russell’s charge through the pack to salvage sixth place from the pit lane with the old-spec parts increased Hamilton’s sense that something was amiss with his W15.
But although he has acknowledged Russell’s progress in the race with the previous package, Wolff has insisted that Mercedes holds no plans to abandon the updates.
“I don’t think we have a fundamental issue on the upgrade, very much,” the Austrian stressed.
“I think it’s more interaction on aero and on mechanical stuff and therefore, I mean, we’re going to continue with the upgrade.
“Makes no sense to not because there’s a lot of time you leave on the table but on the other side you need to be very open-minded.
“I mean, George drove the July upgrade today because we didn’t have the floor and that seemed pretty competitive in the race.”
Wolff baffled by Mercedes pace loss
Instead, Wolff contends that Mercedes’ biggest problem is understanding the reason behind the squad’s dramatic regression in competitiveness across the weekend.
“Having said that, if you’re missing a few tenths in qualifying that makes a big difference because it’s just not as good as it should be,” he continued.
“So it is more that really getting on top of why do we have a car that on Friday [Hamilton] is by far the quickest before the [Franco] Colapinto situation.
“It was four-tenths up and the last sector was just trouble, but he would have been quickest and then on Saturday it’s transformed.
“In the Sprint race we had a broken suspension. That’s one explanation. We fixed that in the qualifying, nothing would go anymore and we started to have pace.”
