TOTO WOLFF labelled the Bahrain Grand Prix one of his “worst days of racing” after watching Max Verstappen blitz his way to victory.
The Red Bull ace crossed the line a staggering 50 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton‘s Merc – with team boss Wolff admitting he is “not bulls******g” when he says his team are THAT bad.
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff admitted Red Bull was ‘on a different planet’
Lewis Hamilton came a distant 18th as Mercedes struggled
Wolff had earlier confessed Merc will be forced to scrap this year’s car due to its poor performance after only ONE qualifying session.
The staggering revelation comes after a winter of development and, despite initially feeling confident coming into the season, they are again trailing in Red Bull’s dust.
He said: “One of the worst days in racing. Really not good at all, we were just lacking pace front, right and centre. Red Bull is just on a different planet.
“I’m not bulls*****g myself and I’m not bulls*****g the media. I have always been transparent and honest.
“What I’m saying here is how I feel right now. I’m not overreacting; the gap is very big and in order to catch up we need to make big steps. Not conventional ones.
“When you look at where we were at the end of last season, where it looked like we caught up a lot but, we have almost doubled, if not tripled, the gap to Red Bull.
“For us, everything is bad and in the race you saw the consequences and we were going backwards.”
Hamilton went winless for the first time in his F1 career last season while team-mate George Russell scored one victory for the team in Brazil.
But despite the prospect of another year of struggle, Wolff does not expect that to prevent Hamilton from agreeing new terms.
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Hamilton, 38, has a contract until the end of the year and both Jenson Button and Damon Hill have questioned whether he will re-sign now he’s not winning.
Hamilton said he IS committed to the team and Wolff has also dismissed the idea he will walk away now he has a battle on his hands.
Wolff added: “The drivers are fully aware. We’re speaking about it openly in the whole team. It is a matter of serious performance we need to find.
“Lewis is an integral part of the team. You could hear on the radio he was picking the team up.
“We are all sticking together and I don’t think that’s going to change just because we had another start that was really bad.
“We have won eight constructors championships and six driver championships with him and that relationship holds.
“It would be much too easy to lose a driver and throw in the towel but we have to dig deeper than we have ever done.”
