Toto Wolff apologises to Lewis Hamilton for ‘undrivable’ Mercedes car in ‘terrible’ Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Toto Wolff has apologised to Lewis Hamilton for what the Mercedes team principal described as an “undrivable” car during the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Hamilton was again left frustrated by the performance of his vehicle, struggling to fight his way up through the field and unable to get by Pierre Gasly, who held the seven-time world champion at bay for much of the race at Imola.

George Russell was able to overcome Mercedes’ ongoing problems and continue his run of top-five finishes, holding off Valtteri Bottas, the man he replaced at the team, to secure fourth.

For Hamilton, though, a finish outside of the points in 13th capped a weekend of poor showings in qualifying, Saturday’s sprint race and finally on feature race day in northern Italy.

In the immediate aftermath of the result, Wolff said the car must be blamed for the performance.

“Sorry for what you had to drive today,” the Mercedes team principal said to Hamilton over the radio. “I know this is undrivable. This was a terrible race.”

Hamilton replied: “No worries, Toto. Let’s keep working hard.”

Wolff expanded on Hamilton’s struggles to Sky Sports, and suggest that Mercedes will look to make improvements ahead of the Miami Grand Prix on 8 May.

“Yeah, really bad,” Wolff concluded. “He got squeezed by the Alpine, the other two cars undercut and there’s just no overtaking when you’re in a DRS train.

“We saw from George what the car can do in free air but we are not good enough for a world champion, not worthy for a world champion. We just need to fix the car.

“I think we are going to look at things for Miami. I think we can make a step in the understanding of the car. It’s another day, we just really need to understand more and bring development to the car which will fix the bouncing.”

Russell was able to hold on to fourth despite coming under significant late-race pressure from Bottas.

It continued a strong start to the season in new colours for Russell, and Wolff revealing that the 24-year-old had to manage a car set up for rain that never arrived during the race to capitalise on Carlos Sainz’s opening-lap retirement and Charles Leclerc’s late spin.

“George really drove well considering the car he had underneath,” said Wolff.

“He had a car that was setup for the wet, and not for dry and he handled it... a really really good drive.”