"The stopwatch never lies so today seems like a fair result," claims Wolff
Despite Mercedes' dominant display at last year's Las Vegas Grand Prix, Toto Wolff was not surprised that his outfit was unable to replicate that result last Saturday.
George Russell had an ordinary start and managed to capitalize on Lando Norris’ small error at Turn 1 to move himself up into second place on the opening lap.
Although he looked very competitive in the opening stages of the race and put race leader Max Verstappen under pressure, he struggled to keep his tyre alive and elected to pit earlier than his rivals.
As a result of his early pit stop, he managed to close in on Verstappen after the first round of pit stops, but he used too much tyre life. While he was trying to look after his tyres, Norris closed in on him and managed to go past Russell. The Mercedes driver finished third, but he inherited second place after Norris’ disqualification for a technical infringement.
His team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli started from P17 after his difficult qualifying session. The Bologna-born driver started on the softs, pitted early for the hards under the Virtual Safety Car intervention.
Although several drivers struggled to keep the tyres in good shape, Antonelli somehow managed to make that compound last all the way to the flag.
In the closing stages, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc closed in on Antonelli, putting him under great pressure, but he managed to hold the McLaren and the Ferrari driver at bay for lap after lap.
In the closing stages, he managed to escape from Leclerc enough to finish ahead of the Monegasque despite a five-second time penalty for jumping the start. Ultimately, he came home fifth, but he inherited P3 with the later disqualification of both McLaren cars.
Despite Mercedes' dominant display at last year's Las Vegas Grand Prix, Toto Wolff was not surprised that his outfit was unable to replicate that result last Saturday.
"The stopwatch never lies so today seems like a fair result. Many people had labelled us as favourites after winning here last year but we knew that a repeat performance of such dominance was going to be unlikely 12 months on. We come away from here with another good haul of points for the championship though and that is always the aim.
Highlighting some details of the 50-lap race, Wolff added: "George was pushing early in both stints to try and overtake Verstappen for the lead. That likely asked a lot of the tyre which we suffered with later in the stint.
"That, coupled with the pace of the McLaren, made it impossible for him to resist Norris but he did a good job to manage his pace to the end and bring home the podium.
"Kimi meanwhile did a brilliant job to push from P17 all the way to P4 on the road and P5 after the penalty was applied. We can only imagine what he would have done today if he was starting nearer the front. Nevertheless, it was another good performance building on several strong weekends that he has put together recently."
