Toto Wolff shares Lewis Hamilton verdict on Mercedes breakthrough

Hamilton finished second behind the unstoppable Max Verstappen at the Mexican Grand Prix as the W14 showed improvements

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has revealed Lewis Hamilton’s reaction to his joint-best performance of the season after finishing second at the Mexican Grand Prix.

It’s been a long grind of a season for Mercedes, who have struggled to consistently get the desired results from their W14 car, prompting plenty of frustration from Hamilton and teammate George Russell amid Red Bull’s domination.

But there were signs of life in Mexico over the weekend as Russell finished sixth but Hamilton crossed the line in second place for just the third time this season following the Spanish GP in June and the Australian GP back in April.

The 38-year-old couldn’t catch the unstoppable Max Verstappen cruising to another race victory but team boss Wolff joked that the veteran British driver was finally happy with the W14.

“Today I think it was a first where he said ‘the car is actually good!’,” smiled Wolff. “But it was a brilliant, brilliant drive and we have these oscillations in performance. We don’t really know, sometimes the tyres stick, sometimes not.

“The smiles on our faces because the car was strong. I think once Lewis was in free air, we had so much margin on the medium, fastest lap at the end. It was good.”

Mercedes are hardly alone in struggling this campaign, with Red Bull having won all but one of the 19 races so far, with Verstappen claiming victory in 16 of those – already breaking his own record from last year of most wins in a single season.

Max Verstappen has been unstoppable in F1 this season (AP)

Not since Russell crossed the line first at Interlagos in 2022 have the German manufacturer finished top of the podium but Wolff is pleased with the progress shown, although he refused to commit to an exact timescale on when that elusive win might come.

“Not sure,” Wolff said. “It’s been a few weekends now that we’ve been saying ‘we could have’ but we didn’t.

“I think we need to qualify better and then probably in straight-line speed, it wouldn’t have been so competitive against Max but who knows? The pace is there.”