Wolff admits Hamilton faces a tough task

40

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admits Lewis Hamilton faces a "very difficult" task to recover from the back of the field in today's Belgian Grand Prix.

Hamilton is due to start from 21st on the grid at Spa-Francorchamps as a result of a number of power unit penalties, with three new power units introduced this weekend resulting in a grid drop of 55 places. With Nico Rosberg only taking pole position by 0.149s from Max Verstappen - and Kimi Raikkonen just 0.017s further back - Wolff admits the gaps show Hamilton is likely to have a tough race.

"At a certain stage, we needed to take it but, if you look at the gaps now, it is probably very difficult for him to recover to a good position," Wolff said. "So, in hindsight, if we would have known, which we didn’t, then Monza would maybe have been the better choice.

"But again I am 100% convinced, given the parameters and information we had before Spa, taking the engine penalty here, taking it early, getting a new engine into Lewis’ car early, was the right decision – but, if it’s hot, it’s going to be very difficult for him to recover to a sensible position."

However, Wolff does believe the grid looked closer due to Mercedes struggling to get its supersoft tyres to work as well as its rivals.

"We seem to struggle more than other teams with overheating and blistering. It’s odd because, on particular surfaces and particular circuits, the normal one-second gap from the soft to the supersoft doesn’t materialise because the supersoft just gives up.

"The drivers said that, after turn one, the rear was going on the supersoft, so our performance on the soft is what you would deem as normal, but we’re not able to extract more from the softer tyre because the tyre just gives up."

QUALIFYING REPORT: Rosberg edges Verstappen and Raikkonen for pole

Silbermann says ... Spa too hot

Romain Grosjean column: More motivated than ever

Chris Medland's 2016 Belgian Grand Prix preview

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.