Toto Wolff watched his drivers slog their way round the Marina Bay Street Circuit on a hot and humid evening in Singapore, with George Russell finishing where he started in fourth and Lewis Hamilton dropping three places to come home sixth.
Hamilton’s slide down the order was the direct result of a bold strategy call to start the seven-time world champion on the soft compound tyre as opposed to the mediums favoured by the rest of the top 10 and the majority of the grid, and Wolff was quick to admit that his team didn’t get that one quite right.
“I think we’ve read the race wrong,” Wolff admitted. “We took a decision based on historic [data] that this race was basically a procession, Monaco-like and that the soft tyre would give [Hamilton] an opportunity at the start, basically the only overtaking opportunity.
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“And that was a decision that we all took together jointly, it felt like a good offset. But with the rear tyre deg we had, there was only one way and that was backwards. So, I think there was a logic behind it, but it was contrary to what we should have decided. But it doesn’t hide away from the fact that when the car is slow, you’re just slow.”
