Mercedes concede to costly F1 mistake

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has conceded his squad failed to provide its drivers with the optimal tools for the start of the Japanese Grand Prix last weekend.

For the third successive race, Mercedes secured a front-row lockout with Kimi Antonelli leading George Russell in Suzuka.

However, continuing with a trend seen this year, it was a slow start for the Brackley-based squad, who found itself down the order at the end of the first lap.

Russell dropped to fourth place while Antonelli fell to sixth. Although Antonelli cycled back to the lead of the race through a cheap pit stop under a safety car, Russell suffered the consequences of pitting right before it was deployed.

To further compound his frustrations, Russell struggled for pace in comparison to his team-mate, which all stemmed from a change after the final practice session.

“I think the race went against him starting with the qualifying set-up decisions," Wolff told media including RacingNews365.

“With the set-up decision that put the car in a spot that was literally from FP3 to qualifying much worse.”

While Wolff asserted the driver made errors with their poor starts, he admitted the team was not running at its optimum on the opening lap.

“And then the start, certainly we don't give the two drivers the best of tools for the starts, but then it was also driver mistakes on the start,” he said.

“We had to make the call for the Safety Car because we were risking the position to [Charles] Leclerc and then luck fell onto Kimi's side, who was very quick at that stage and bad luck for George that he lost these positions there.

"On top of that, we had a software glitch that gave him a super clip and he got overtaken by Leclerc. So, this is literally everything that went wrong for him.”