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Toto Wolff was left stumped by Mercedes’ “totally off” weekend in Zandvoort, insisting the team had plenty of “head scratching” to do in order to uncover why they were so far off the pace.
While Lewis Hamilton’s P8 finish could be attributed to his poor qualifying result and three-place grid penalty that left him starting 14th, George Russell qualified on the second row and ran third in the opening stages after overtaking Oscar Piastri off the line.
READ MORE: Hamilton rues impact of poor qualifying in Zandvoort as Russell mystified by Mercedes’ lack of pace
But Russell couldn’t hold onto that place as he was undercut by Charles Leclerc, overtaken on track by the recovering Piastri, and then about to be overtaken on merit by Carlos Sainz when Mercedes called him into the pits for a second set of fresh tyres.
That dropped him behind Sergio Perez, and even with fresh rubber, Russell couldn’t close the gap to the Mexican, winding up seventh just ahead of his team mate – who seemed to have better pace as he climbed back up the order.
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