Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted that the cause of Lewis Hamilton’s performance crippling tyre woes during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend remains a mystery.
The Englishman endured his most challenging weekend of the season so far in Monaco, with his inconsistent pace attributed to his failure to find the correct operating window of his Pirelli tyres.
After qualifying in a dismal 14th on Saturday, Hamilton recovered well to seventh on race day. Curiously, his pace immediately after his one and only pitstop on Sunday was in stark contrast to qualifying.
“After the pitstop, suddenly we were the quickest car out there,” Wolff stated. “You could say the Ferrari were switched off at that stage but we were too.
“I had a short chat with him afterwards, he said the grip was back – why that is, remains an Italian mystery.
“We need to understand it because Ferrari is able to understand and race the car in these conditions.”
The consistency of Ferrari’s SF70H package is evident from Sebastian Vettel’s current championship standing. The German leads Hamilton by 25 points at the head of the table, having finished either first or second at every round in this campaign to date.
Meanwhile, Hamilton’s Monaco mystery can be added to his similarly confusing weekend in Russia, where the triple champion was anonymous throughout. In this case, Valtteri Bottas’ race-winning performance in the opposite Mercedes served to add to the perplexity.
“We have a fast car, but she doesn’t like the tyres, and that is something we need to understand, why that is,” Wolff added.
“Ferrari is able to put the car on the floor and it goes straight from the beginning until the end, with both drivers equally competitive or uncompetitive.
“That has been different all through the season for us. I have confidence in the group of people so the more mileage we do, the more data we collect, the better we will understand.
“Looking forward, I don’t know if we will have more difficult weekends or not. Normally, the longer it goes, the better it gets for us.”
