Austrian Grand Prix: Mercedes left with nothing but regret after Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas no-show

Max Verstappen's Red Bull took victory as Sebastian Vettel re-took the lead in the driver's championship

Mercedes left Austria with nothing after a double retirement (REUTERS)

As Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team head straight into his home grand prix at Silverstone this week, team boss Toto Wolff explained the decision which cost the world champion a chance of winning Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix, which ultimately produced the team’s first double retirement since Spain 2016 when Hamilton and his then team-mate Nico Rosberg collided.

Wolff said that they were caught out when Valtteri Bottas’ car, which had started from pole position and was running second behind Hamilton, abruptly rolled to a halt with a leak in the steering hydraulics.

"Suddenly you see your second car stopping," he said. “The virtual safety car came out, we had half a lap to react, and we didn't. Fact.

"This is where we lost the race. At that stage of it with the VSC, pitting is probably 80% the thing you need to do. With one car out there against two others, the thinking process that happened was, 'what would happen if the others pitted a car?'

"We would come out behind Kimi [Raikkonen] because they [Ferrari] would leave Kimi out and behind Max [Verstappen, Red Bull]. What would that mean for the race? That whole thinking loop I wouldn't say distracted us, but we spent too much time on that.”

In the end even that assumption was incorrect, as Ferrari and Red Bull pitted both cars at the same time, choosing to stack Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo respectively.

Wolff said that the day was personally his most painful since that collision in Spain, which ironically had also handed victory to Max Verstappen, his first since joining Red Bull.

"I had plenty of people coming to see me before the start and saying, 'This is going to be a walk in the park, one-two, you have the quickest car.' Wolff said, after the Mercedes duo wrapped up the front row of the grid, and main rival Vettel was penalised from third to sixth on the grid after impeding Renault’s Carlos Sainz in the final qualifying session.

"This is exactly how motor racing can go. It can be very cruel and we had all the cruelty go against us today."

The problem is that this is not the first time that Mercedes have reacted slowly in such circumstances, and this latest situation came so soon after the soul-searching post-race meeting the team had had after losing the Canadian GP to Ferrari. Hamilton said the meeting, in which everybody was invited to be candid and offer constructive criticism of themselves and everyone else, had been cathartic. He then won the French GP the weekend before last, and all had seemed well. But now an old problem had arisen again to haunt the team.

Hamilton's Mercedes ground to a halt seven laps from home (AFP/Getty)

In the end, Hamilton’s race was undone by a mechanical problem with falling fuel pressure, handing the points leads to Vettel and Ferrari in both the drivers’ and constructors’ championship tables. But the fact remains that the strategic snafu had already cost their man his chance of victory when he appeared set to dominate.

Wolff also admitted Ferrari alone did not appear to have been troubled by the blistering problem that beset other Pirelli users due to a spike in the race-day track temperatures, which were much higher than they had been in qualifying at 47 degrees C compared to 33.

Hamilton had to make two stops, where Ferrari made only one and were able to challenge Verstappen’s troubled Red Bull in the closing stages.

Only canny driving by the Dutchman had cemented a brilliant victory for the Milton Keynes team. That success gave Mercedes something else to think about ahead of Silverstone: the nine races held thus far in the 21-race season had now seen Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull each win three, confirming that the title contest is a three-horse race.

Verstappen gave Red Bull a home win (Reuters)

"The only ones who didn't have the tyre problems were the Ferraris, but all others suffered from heavy blistering and that was definitely not something that we expected," Wolff said. "I guess it was due to the fact that everyone who suffered from the blistering was attacking. We were going flat out, and going flat out means you are overheating the surface of the tyre, and that causes the blistering."

Mercedes’ sole consolation was that Ferrari were also vulnerable in their decision making. Mercedes’ grief, Red Bull’s somewhat surprise victory, and Ferrari’s strong run towards the end, were all confirmation of just how close the 2018 F1 season has become, but there was evidence that Ferrari let a possible 1-2 slip through their fingers by being too cautious early on.