‘One of my worst experiences’ – Wolff ‘not in a happy place’ after Russell DNF at Bahrain GP in Malaysia

Toto Wolff admitted that he was “not in a happy place” after George Russell suffered a late retirement from the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia due to a power unit issue, with the Mercedes boss stating that the race had been “one of my worst experiences”.

After bringing upgrades to Sepang, the Silver Arrows were hopeful for their prospects. However, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen outpaced them to secure pole position before converting this into his first win of the season.

Kimi Antonelli managed to hold onto second place in what proved to be an eventful afternoon with changing weather conditions, but Russell’s day ended in disaster when he was forced to pull off to the side of the track just a few laps from the finish.

With it marking the Briton’s third retirement of the season – and the team’s fourth, Antonelli having suffered a mechanical failure in Barcelona – Wolff was left feeling frustrated by how the team’s race had panned out.

“It's a PU failure,” he explained of Russell’s DNF to Sky Sports F1. “It wasn't caused by the Safety Car, so we haven't assessed it yet.

“I'm so massively annoyed and not in a happy place. First of all, we didn't have the speed that we were hoping to have before the weekend, so there's a lot of homework to be done in order to recover, which I'm sure we will.

“Then the race literally, if you consider the fight with Lewis [Hamilton] behind, went against us. We had such an advantage, [but then] two VSCs or one VSC, two Safety Cars… you couldn't be more unlucky.

“To make things worse, a PU failure with a few laps to go to the end with George, which is terrible for his championship and not good at all for our constructor points. So as much as I love to be here, when I look at the pure race, it's one of my worst experiences, to be honest."

While Wolff took heart from Antonelli’s result, the Austrian remained unhappy about the potential impact that further retirements could have for Mercedes.

“[Kimi] scored a few more points than Lewis behind him,” said Wolff. “I'm happy because he did the job. But it's just this overarching topic, the DNFs, that could cost us dearly also for the remaining seven races.

“A championship is quickly turned around against you, if you have a DNF, and that's why that can't continue.”

Despite this, Wolff admitted that he is taking positives from his belief in the team’s ability to turn things around.

“I think we have a good action plan,” the Team Principal continued. “James [Allison, Technical Director] is really fully on top of it with his leadership team. That lifts my mood, because I know we have such a tremendous group of people, and the same way as with HPP [High Performance Powertrains], they're going to sort it out.

“But that gives me real relief for the moment to know they are the best, and they are going to find a solution, and I think that we will come back strong.”