Mercedes had a difficult weekend in Austria following on from their win in Canada, with George Russell only finishing in fifth place.

Russell was driving his own race in the Mercedes, having not been under pressure from any cars behind, but also unable to catch Ferrari, whose drivers were struggling with skid block wear.

Ferrari told both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to lift and coast, which prevented them from being able to catch the fighting McLarens.

Even with their hindrance, Mercedes were simply unable to match their pace in the race, with Russell crossing the line where he qualified in fifth.

Toto Wolff was unhappy with their performance and urged Mercedes engineers to stop using one excuse for their lack of pace relative to rivals when speaking to Sky Sports Germany.

Toto Wolff wants Mercedes engineers to stop using hot conditions as ‘excuse’

Mercedes have been struggling in hot conditions for a few seasons now, with their car unable to cool down the tyres during pivotal moments in the race.

Wolff was scathing about their performance in Austria and wants engineers to find the root cause of the problem.

“The pace we lacked overall is something you can only scratch your head and understand. There is no excuse for that, we won here last year. Before the two drove into the front of the car, we were 16 seconds behind, today a minute. We know we’ve done a few experiments, but you can’t be that far behind,” said Wolff.

“You can’t always rely on it, but Silverstone has always been a good place for us in recent years. At the moment, a bad performance here in Austria with these temperatures counts and the weather must not always be the excuse.”

Photo by Guenther Iby/SEPA.Media /Getty Images

Toto Wolff said Mercedes ‘knew’ Kimi Antonelli would have incidents in 2025

To make matters worse for Mercedes, Kimi Antonelli crashed out just three corners into the race when he collided with Max Verstappen at the start.

Verstappen was taken out by the Italian as he went through Turn 3, after Antonelli lost control of his car avoiding Gabriel Bortoleto and Liam Lawson.

“This is a rookie mistake, but this happens. We always knew he was in his year and that’s allowed,” said Wolff.

Antonelli was handed a three-place grid penalty for the British Grand Prix for causing the collision, while Max Verstappen is now over 50 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri.