German GP | Disaster home race for Mercedes with both drivers out of the points
German Grand Prix turned out as a complete nightmare for Mercedes, as after dominating most of the race both Hamiton and Bottas didn’t score any point in Hockenheim.
Lewis Hamilton’s pole position seemed to be the perfect start of a weekend to remember for Mercedes, celebrating here their 125th anniversary in Motorsport. The five-time world champion led the race under the wet, before switching to slick tyres to soon and spinning out in last turn. He was lucky enough to get his car back to the box, but his pit stop was a complete tragedy as it took 50 seconds for the team to complete it. The Brit also had a 5 seconds penalty who took him out of the points in the very end.
Hamilton referred to this one has one of the most difficult races he ever had with Mercedes: “I thought I had the race under control, but we took a risk going out on slicks and the race fell apart from there. I went wide at Turn 16 and it was like ice out there, then hit the wall and damaged my wing. I made a mistake and paid the price. I was in the lead and then finished P11. I'm not even sure how, but that's very painful and I'm just glad it's over.”
Valtteri Bottas also turned into a nightmare, after he fought for the podium for most of the time during the race. In the closing stages of the race, he went back in fourth position fighting with Lance Stroll as he crashed out in Turn 1. The Finn was disappointed about his own performance: “That was a really tough race and I'm very disappointed. It was tricky out there: the track was very slippery and the conditions changed all the time”, he said.
“It was very easy to make a mistake and unfortunately I made a mistake in the end which lost us a lot of points. It's a shame because today was a good opportunity for me to make up some points to Lewis and it was my own fault that I ended up not getting any points at all in the end. It's very disappointing for the entire team, but we'll give it everything to come back stronger in Hungary”, Bottas concluded.
What to say on a day like today...
— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) July 28, 2019
This hurts every single one of us to the core.
We will take our pain and learn our lessons.
It is time to reflect, be humble and grow stronger from the mistakes we made.#GermanGP #Motorsport125 pic.twitter.com/RfYImc1rR5
Toto Wolff was pretty clear about how unhappy he was after today’s race: “It was a disastrous result today. We had a decent start of the race with good pace. Then obviously you add incidents, crashing out, tricky conditions, the wrong calls and in the end you're left with zero points after running 1-2 in the opening laps.”
“Our 200th race in F1 has been the most difficult day we've had in a long time, but we are united in the pain as we are united in the joy of winning. Today is a day for us to look at our mistakes and to learn from them, so we can come back stronger next weekend”, he added.
