F1 News
Mercedes need to work on cooling issues says boss Wolff
- Bevan Youl
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has admitted that his team need to work on solving their cooling problems after struggling with temperatures at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The silver arrows headed into Austria unbeaten in eight races this year but were unable to cope with the high temperatures and altitude of the Red Bull Ring to be able to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull.
Championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished fifth behind Sebastian Vettel, while Valtteri Bottas finished third off the leaders Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.
Wolff said to Formula 1: “We knew that it was our Achilles heel and we were carrying the (cooling) problems since the beginning of the season.
“We tried to work on mitigating the performance loss, but at the end it was really painful to watch us cruising, not being able to defend or attack.
“We were running the engine way turned down, lifting and coasting for up to 400 metres — it’s almost having no throttle rolling downwards — and still able to pull in some decent lap times. But we were limited by the cooling problems.”
The team made adjustments where possible to try to reduce cooling problems on the car but the Austrian admitted that more could have been done but could have led to a more damaging performance.
“The next step would have been to remove all the bodywork,” Wolff added.
“So that was not really an option because the sponsors wouldn’t have liked it!
“Right on the limit. We couldn’t do anything anymore, and it was already very damaging for performance what we did. There was no step left anymore.”