Mercedes failed to continue its positive start to the 2025 season, leaving the team in disarray after Jeddah. Toto Wolff was furious, believing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to have been Mercedes’ worst performance of the year.
The Silver Arrows finished fifth (George Russell) and sixth (Andrea Kimi Antonelli) in Jeddah, as they fell significantly behind McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari in the race.
Wolff was confused as to why Mercedes lacked pace, especially when they had a strong start to the 2025 season, where they hold the position of vice-champion of constructors after five races.
“It was obviously our worst performance of the year so far,” said the Mercedes boss. “The pace simply dropped due to cracking, overheating tyres and so far we have no explanation.”
The fact that Mercedes was quick in qualifying – Russell started the race in third – further frustrated Wolff.
“You manage your expectations to be second fastest – and even that is obviously not what we would like to achieve – and then you see the race unfold as it was. It just makes the situation even more frustrating,” he added.
Russell shared Wolff’s frustration after having trouble managing the tyres, telling Sky Sports F1 that they were “extremely overheating”.
“I was trying really hard to keep up with Max at the start of the second stint,” he added, “but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up to the end and we just fell away towards the end of the race.”
“I was losing a second per lap in the last 15 laps, but realistically, we didn’t have the pace, and even if I had managed to pull more out, I think I would still have finished fifth.”
“We know that’s one of the weaknesses of our car at the moment. Finishing fifth on a bad day – we’ll accept that – but we have to try to improve it quickly.”
Russell added that the lack of performance was not caused by higher temperatures on the track: “It’s about how fast we go through these corners, and for some reason we generate higher temperatures than our competitors.”
“Then suddenly you get to the point where the tires are like a balloon. We had bubbles on both the front and rear tires, and then you just don’t have any grip anymore.”
This comes after a positive start to the 2025 season for Russell, who has achieved three podium finishes in the first four races, including second place in Bahrain last weekend.
“We have to understand why Bahrain was so positive, because it is also a track with overheating, but of a completely different type to the one you face here in Jeddah. We had higher hopes for today’s race than for Bahrain, and it turned out to be the complete opposite.”
