Toto Wolff explains ‘catastrophic’ strategy which saw Mercedes score a single point at Silverstone

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George Russell took the final point-paying position at the British Grand Prix, marking Mercedes’ worst performance at Silverstone since their re-introduction to the sport in 2010.

Russell produced one of his ‘best qualifying laps’ of the season and was the highest-placed driver on the grid who took the opportunity to box for slicks on the formation lap.

A VSC was called out due to debris from a lap one incident, to which Mercedes decided to put all of their money on the hopes of a dry stint and box Andrea Kimi Antonelli for a set of slicks as well.

Whilst it looked like the right call as the Silverstone tarmac started to dry out, the heavens opened once again, forcing the stewards to bring out the Safety Car and the rest of the grid to return to intermediate-weather tyres.

Toto Wolff on Mercedes at Silverstone

Whilst the Safety Car brought the Silver Arrows back into play, the lack of visibility due to the poor conditions made it extremely difficult for them to make ground on the front-runners in hopes of a podium position.

This was proven with Isack Hadjar careering into the back of Antonelli at the entry of Copse which forced the Italian rookie into his fourth retirement of the season.

Three of those retirements have come in the previous four Grand Prix, fuelling the Max Verstappen to Mercedes rumours which have been circulating in recent weeks.

When asked if the initial change to slicks came from the pit-wall or the cockpit, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained.

“We’re all in this together, but the first call, or the first decision from within the car and the people, was terribly wrong,” Wolff told the media at Silverstone on Sunday.

“That kind of made us spiral from bad to worse, because that triggered the stop for Kimi,” Wolff continued.

“When you see where Kimi was running, we should have simply kept him out with a split strategy and probably we would have been where Nico Hulkenberg was, because he was ahead of him.

“I think all of us together had a robust chat up there, and everybody acknowledges that the first decision was actually the catastrophic one.”

In hindsight, Wolff likened the decision to being the ‘guillotine that fell,’ which made it difficult for the team to regain the positions they lost in the pit lane.

Russell blames early VSC for dry strategy going ‘against us’

Whilst it wasn’t the right decision on the day, the Brit doubled down on his decision to box before the lights went out due to the events which took place afterwards.

“I think pitting at the beginning was not a stupid decision because it was dry for 25 minutes,” Russell told media on Sunday.

“What we didn’t know is it would be 15 minutes of virtual safety car. When the virtual safety car ended, we had five seconds pace advantage over the guys on the inters.

“If only we had the whole stint of this, maybe we would have got back into the lead. But when it rains, it pours, and everything just went against us.

“In our position, if you play it safe, you’ll come home with a safe result. Of course, that would have probably been P4. Standing here now, do I wish I had P4? Of course.

“We wanted to be bold; we wanted to be brave. We went for some bold decisions and ultimately it bit.”

The single-point haul from the weekend saw Ferrari take a 12-point advantage over Mercedes for second place in the Constructors’ standings, something they will hope to overturn at the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix.