‘These mistakes happen’ – Wolff defends Antonelli after Verstappen clash on tough Austria weekend for Mercedes

Toto Wolff was left to rue a challenging Austrian Grand Prix for Mercedes after Kimi Antonelli’s first-lap collision with Max Verstappen and George Russell’s lonely run to fifth position.

Winners last time out at the Canadian Grand Prix, Mercedes continued where they left off with a pace-setting display in first practice at the Red Bull Ring, but that would prove to be the high point of their weekend.

After Qualifying fifth and ninth respectively, Mercedes’ hopes of turning the situation around were severely dented at the start of the race when Antonelli lost control of his car under braking for Turn 3 and collected Red Bull rival Verstappen.

From there, Russell was the Silver Arrows’ sole representative and had to settle for converting his starting position – finishing a minute behind the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Asked to reflect on the race, beginning with Antonelli’s incident, which earned the rookie a three-place grid drop, Mercedes boss Wolff said: “We always knew that eventually… No, I word it differently. These mistakes happen.

“The rears blocked on the car. I’m not entirely sure it was his [Antonelli’s] fault or a system. I haven’t seen any data or heard anything, because obviously we were concentrating on the race. But that happens, you know.

“It’s unfortunate for Max and Red Bull that Kimi hit him, but it’s racing.”

Asked if he had spoken with Antonelli about what happened, Wolff shared: “Yeah, he came into the garage quickly. I said, ‘Well, that wasn’t great’, which he obviously knew, but he said the tyres just blocked and we need to analyse that.

“It’s a shame that Max… that we took another car out with us, but that can happen to the great ones, to the inexperienced ones, to the experienced ones – it’s just part of F1.”

Wolff then reflected on Mercedes’ wider weekend performance, having gone from pole position and victory with Russell in cooler Montreal conditions to finishing third-best behind McLaren and Ferrari amid the Spielberg heat.

“When you look at our performance last year, we won, we won the race here,” said Wolff, pointing to Russell capitalising on Verstappen and Norris’ clash. “We were, I don’t remember, 10-15 seconds behind the leaders, and that was a very solid performance.

“This year we’re a minute behind the leaders, so that is clearly out of the ordinary what happened today. We do experiment at the moment a little bit, how to position, how to put the car on track, where we put the balance, and clearly this one we got wrong – and we know that.

“I think it’s not only down to asphalt, long corners and heat. Clearly that’s not our sweet spot, but it doesn’t explain the gap, and I think we know why, but in hindsight you always know.”

Mercedes dropped back to third in the Teams’ Championship standings following Sunday’s race, a point behind Ferrari, who scored strongly with Charles Leclerc in P3 and Lewis Hamilton in P4.