Toto Wolff takes the blame for Lewis Hamilton's Q2 elimination in the 2023 F1 Miami GP qualifying

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has taken the blame for Lewis Hamilton's dismal showing at the 2023 F1 Miami GP qualifying. The Mercedes driver will start the race in P13. One of the reasons put forward by Hamilton was him being sent out by the team much later than everybody else, leading to him backing off a bit and losing temperature in the tires.

While Hamilton's teammate George Russell fared much better, Wolff took no solace in that and felt that the team needed to look into the performance variance that the car suffers from in different conditions.

Taking the blame for Lewis Hamilton's premature elimination, Toto Wolff told Sky Sports:

"There is not a lot to say [to Lewis]. The car is simply not fast enough and putting him in a situation on his out lap where the driver isn't able to prepare their tyres makes it even worse.

"Nobody makes a mistake on purpose, we're trying to give them the best position. We have in the past got it wrong many times and got it right many times. Today [Saturday] for George and Lewis that really went south and you can see in his first sector that the car simply wasn't there."

Wolff added:

"If things go bad, they compound bad. This happened for him and for all of us as a team. I take no enjoyment from finishing sixth because probably it was eighth or seventh. And even if it was fifth I took no enjoyment either because it's a lack of comprehension of what it is that makes this car such a nasty piece of work."

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Lewis Hamilton's performance was a disappointment as well

While Toto Wolff has been quick to take the blame away from Lewis Hamilton, it is hard to ignore the fact that George Russell had the same car and was able to reach Q3. While Hamilton was sent out a bit late, it was something that the Mercedes driver should have accounted for.

Not only that, the gap between Hamilton and Russell had continued to be roughly two-tenths of a second in the previous laps as well. Hence, when push came to shove, Russell was still able to pull off an impressive lap and secure a place in Q3, something that Hamilton couldn't.

Somewhere down the line, for Hamilton, the 4-1 gap will his teammate in qualifying head-to-head this season will play on his mind as well as he tries to ramp things up at Mercedes.