Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says Nico Rosberg's bad luck came all in one race resulting in his seventh place at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton took an impressive victory on Sunday after a Red Bull pit stop error cost Daniel Ricciardo, but Hamilton was only in position to capitalise after his Mercedes team-mate let him through early on. Wolff says a number of factors contributed to Rosberg's poor result which aw his championship lead slashed to 24 points.
“For him it was a messy day," Wolff said. "Not only did he let his team-mate past who is his biggest rival for the championship, he also had a scrappy pit stop and a car that didn’t have any pace. So for him all the bad luck came in one race and this is why he only finished seventh.
"This is the difficulty of what we have. I am extremely delighted and extremely happy for Lewis having won the race in that manner that was just at the right moment, but equally after such a bad race for Nico I am always in two minds, mixed emotions.”
Rosberg's problems follow a number of reliability issues for Mercedes, and Wolff says he expects post-race analysis to show a clear reason why the championship leader struggled for pace so much compared to his team-mate.
“Nico’s problem was much more severe than Lewis’s but still I believe that overall we need to look at the pace around Monaco and analyse. I am very curious to see after seeing all the summary of the data what actually happened.”
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