Mercedes Boss Toto Wolff Apologises To Lewis Hamilton For Undriveable Car

Lewis Hamilton's weekend ended in huge disappointment at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola and Toto Wolff called his Mercedes car 'undriveable.'

It has been a terrible start to the Formula One season for Hamilton, after just one podium finish in the opening four races of the new season.

Sunday's race was almost certainly the worst for Hamilton in quite some time, and he even had to move over as rival Max Verstappen lapped him with 20 laps still to go.

The seven time world drivers' champion had to sit behind other midfield cars for large passages of the race and would have got very acquainted with the back of Pierre Galsy's car throughout.

After the race, team principal Wolff got on the radio to apologise to his driver for giving him an 'undriveable' car.

🗣️"I know this is undrivable"
🗣️"This was a terrible race"

Toto Wolff with a very honest radio message to Lewis Hamilton following a difficult Emilia Romagna Grand Prix for Mercedes driver 👇 pic.twitter.com/2Qp4TYZ74R

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) April 24, 2022

"Lewis, hi," the 50-year-old started, Sorry for what you have needed to drive today. I know this is undriveable and not what we deserved to score as a result. 

"So we move from there, but this was a terrible race."

"Yeah, no worries, Toto. Let's keep working hard," a pretty despondent driver said back.

"Yeah, we will. We will come out of this," Wolff replied.

Whilst Hamilton, considered by many to be the greatest F1 driver of all time, struggled to finish outside of the points, it wasn't the case for his teammate.

George Russell, who somehow was starting the race second in the drivers' championship, managed to finish fourth in the race, completely overshaddowing his teammate.

The former Williams driver was helped by Charles Leclerc crash late on in the race, which cost the Ferrari driver a potential second place finish.

The disparity between the two Mercedes drivers led people to question whether it was really the car that gave Hamilton his issues.

BBC Sport's Formula One writer Andrew Benson perfectly summed up the difference, saying, "Russell's race was made by his great start, which jumped him from 11th to sixth on the opening lap.

"Hamilton, by contrast, finished the first lap 12th and was stuck thereafter, unable to pass slower cars."

The 37-year-old's problems were not helped by the race director deciding against allowing DRS until sometime into the race, after a wet start meant it wasn't enabled from the second lap.

He also failed to come into the pits early when the track dried up, in order to switch to slick tyres, and found himself further back after he did pit, once Esteban Ocon made contact with him, after Alpine let their driver go unsafely.