MELBOURNE, Australia -- Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says his team lost Sunday's Australian Grand Prix to Ferrari due to a lack of pace, not because of its strategy calls.
Sebastian Vettel beat Lewis Hamilton to victory in Australia by 9.9s after taking the lead during the pit-stops midway through the race. Mercedes appeared to make the wrong call when it brought Hamilton in for a relatively early tyre change on lap 17 and delivered him back onto the track behind Max Verstappen's Red Bull.
Although Hamilton used his new tyres to set quicker lap times than Vettel initially -- known as getting an undercut -- the time he then lost behind Verstappen ultimately allowed Vettel to pit six laps later and come out in front. Wolff said the Mercedes pit wall was left with little choice but to pit Hamilton when they did as they feared Vettel would undercut their driver if Ferrari beat them to the first pit stop.
"Ferrari was the quicker car, the way Sebastian held onto Lewis' gearbox, we were pushing flat out and we were just not able to pull away," he explained. "There was the risk of the undercut and we thought the tyres wouldn't last anymore and all that led us to the decision to pit to avoid the undercut. And then coming out behind Max who was doing his own race just lost us the race.
"We actually thought... or we had hoped for Max to pit earlier, therefore leaving Lewis in free air. So it was a variable that went against us."
Wolff said the key to understanding why his team lost the race would be about analysing the poor performance on the ultra-soft tyres in the opening stint rather than pit strategy.
"After the race it is always easier when you rewind and say what we could have done better. But I think as a general summary we just weren't quick enough. That is why Sebastian is the deserved winner.
"If you look back and say what we could have done better, we could have done better for sure. Would it have been enough to win? I don't know... Sebastian could have attempted the undercut at any stage and it could have come out the same way. We need to understand why we didn't have the pace at the beginning of the race in these conditions and improve from there."
The decision to pit early came from Hamilton's initial complaints that his ultra-soft tyres were starting to lose grip. Hamilton was pushing hard at the time and it appears he overheated the tyres in trying to keep Vettel at bay in the opening stint. Wolff said keeping the tyres in the right operating window had proved difficult all weekend.
"I believe that these tyres have a very narrow window and you have to keep them in that window in order to perform well," Wolff said when asked why Hamilton was struggling for performance on the ultra-softs. "If you are below the window, you lose performance. So that is different to the last years and needs a new calibration for all of us in understanding the tyres."