Mercedes boss Toto Wolff will be absent from the next Formula One race in Japan, the PA news agency has learned.
It is understood that Wolff’s decision to miss the race in Suzuka on April 7 was taken before the start of the new season and is not connected to the team’s performance in Australia.
Wolff admitted after Sunday’s race at Melbourne’s Albert Park that it is “fair” to question his future as team principal following Mercedes’ troubling weekend.
Lewis Hamilton qualified only 11th and the worst start to his 18-season career was confirmed when his engine expired on lap 17, while team-mate George Russell was seventh when he crashed out.
Wolff, who lives in Monaco, will be on the intercom remotely throughout the race weekend in Japan – with his duties at the circuit to be divided between senior members of the Brackley team.
The Austrian also missed last year’s Japanese GP and the ensuing round in Qatar, following knee surgery. On those occasions the team’s driver development director Jerome d’Ambrosio was handed the effective on-site team principal baton.
But it emerged earlier this month that D’Ambrosio is set to end his association with the team when his contract expires at the end of the season.
Wolff admitted in an interview with the PA news agency last year that he intends to scale back his on-track presence in the coming years.
The 52-year-old, who has been in charge of Mercedes since 2013, recently signed a new three-year deal to remain as chief executive and team principal of the F1 operation he co-owns with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ola Kallenius.
Mercedes won an unprecedented eight consecutive constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021 but they have tasted just one victory from their last 48 outings.
Fresh from his harrowing accident in Melbourne, Russell is expected to be at the team’s HQ in Northamptonshire later this week as Mercedes search for solutions to their underwhelming start to the season.
Russell failed to make it to the end of Sunday’s race after hitting the wall on the penultimate lap in his pursuit of Fernando Alonso.
The double world champion was adjudged to have driven dangerously by the stewards and was demoted from sixth to eighth following a post-race 20-second penalty.
However, the 42-year-old protested his innocence in a message posted on social media.
Alonso wrote: “A bit surprised by a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars. At no point do we want to do anything wrong at these speeds.
“I believe that without gravel on that corner, on any other corner in the world we will never be even investigated.
“In F1, with over 20 years of experience, changing racing lines, sacrificing entry speed to have good exits from corners is part of the art of motorsport.
“We never drive at 100 per cent every race lap and every corner, we save fuel, tyres, brakes, so being responsible for not making every lap the same is a bit surprising. We have to accept it and think about Japan, to have more pace and fight for positions further up the field.”
Hamilton: 'I should have been in pole position' for Las Vegas Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton believes he should have been starting in pole position at the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Sunday despite qualifying 10th.
The Mercedes driver had finished top in both of Friday’s practice sessions before laying down the fastest time in Q2 as well.
Hamilton locked up during his first run in Q3 before a track limits violation in his second run saw his lap time deleted.
The British driver rued his drop-off in form that saw his team-mate and compatriot George Russell take pole position.
"I should have been on pole but I'm not, so it is what it is. C'est la vie, you live to fight another day," he told Sky Sports.
"It is what it is. It's been a good weekend so far, so I'll give it my best shot tomorrow. Congrats to George.
"The car felt different in Q3, and the stability was not there for some reason. But I had it in all the other sessions.
"But ultimately I didn't put the laps together. I'm really quite far back so I'll just see what I can do from there.”
Elsewhere in the paddock, McLaren’s Lando Norris will start in sixth position on the grid, one place behind his title rival Max Verstappen.
Norris needs to beat the Red Bull driver by at least three points to keep his title aspirations alive and take the championship race to the Qatar Grand Prix next week.
He does not, however, favour his chances against the serial winner.
"I will do everything I can. That's what I'm here to do. I'm not going to give up 'til the end even if chances are extremely thin," Norris said.
"I'm here to do the best in every race I can whether I'm fighting for a championship or not. We have [Verstappen] just ahead of us. We have a chance to beat him.
"Whether he wins or not tomorrow, for me it is not going to change anything, he is pretty likely to win the championship.”
Norris currently sits 62 points short of Verstappen who leads the Driver’s Championship on 393 points, though McLaren lead Ferrari by 36 points in the Constructors’ Championship.
"Do I wish it could have gone a bit further? Sure. But the race was lost in the first races of the year, when Max got too far ahead. I am proud and happy with what we’ve done,” Norris added.
"Be optimistic and look ahead to what we can achieve. I don’t expect anything much, for sure."
Russell revels in 'surprise' pole position for Las Vegas Grand Prix
George Russell "put it all on the table" to surge to a surprise pole position at the Las Vegas Grand Prix with an impressive qualifying display.
After Mercedes had topped all three practice sessions on Friday, Russell was able to convert his team's electric practice pace into a fourth career pole.
The Briton finished 0.098 seconds ahead of the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, while Alpine's Pierre Gasly built on his podium at Interlagos last time out by finishing third, with Charles Leclerc starting in fourth.
While it was Russell’s out-going Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton who swept Thursday’s free practice sessions, the seven-time world champion could only manage 10th.
Asked if pole was expected coming into the weekend, Russell replied: “Honestly, absolutely not. It feels incredible to be back on pole.
“We’ve been so quick all weekend and I just knew coming into that last Q3 lap… that’s going to be the one that counts. It doesn’t matter what happened before then.
"I'm just so happy, and we've got to do some deep diving to understand why we’ve been so quick so far this weekend, because it was a real surprise!”
"Ultimately, you’ve got to put it on the table sometimes. I felt confident in myself – I knew if I did a clean lap, it would be enough to secure a front row, so to get pole position is incredible," Russell said.
"Ultimately, we’ve had a few good qualifying recently – we need to convert that into a win now."
Max Verstappen will share the third row of the grid with his sole remaining opponent for the title, Lando Norris, after qualifying fifth.
The Dutchman knows that he must finish ahead of the Briton's McLaren to claim a fourth consecutive world title, putting him level with Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel.
However, Verstappen believes that Red Bull are "just a bit too slow" after struggling for one-lap performance throughout the course of the weekend's action.
"We have been struggling to get the tyres to work over a lap, and we are slow on the straights as well, especially in qualifying," Verstappen said.
"You can see our rear wing, it’s trimmed down quite a lot, around the DRS flap, so when we open DRS we don’t get the gains like others do, so that makes it a bit more complicated around here.
“But that’s our own fault. We know that, that's a compromise we have, but nevertheless, I tried to do the best I could.
"It was quite close for P3, little details that could have been a bit better maybe, but overall I'm happy with the laps, was not much more in it."
'Like driving on ice' - Verstappen and Red Bull struggle in Vegas practice
Max Verstappen claimed that his Red Bull felt like "driving on ice" after struggling in Friday practice ahead of his potential coronation at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Verstappen entered the weekend hoping to leave with a fourth world title, but a fifth and 17th place finish in the opening practice sessions suggested it would be far from easy.
The Dutchman posted a soft-tyre lap just before Alex Albon caused a red flag midway through the second session, with Verstappen unable to improve on his time after that.
It left him two seconds off the pace set by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, revealing that the cold temperatures had an effect on his tyres.
"For me, it feels massively tyre-related. The balance of the car is not even wrong, I think," he said. "We just have no grip, like driving on ice at the moment."
“Yeah, [it was] slippery. I think we struggled a lot with making the tyres work, over one lap especially.
“The long run I think started off a bit more competitive, but even there I think we need to fine-tune a few things. The one-lap pace is quite far off.
“It’s quite unique conditions around here, and it’s very cold, but at the end of the day it’s the same for everyone, so we need to try and understand what we’re doing wrong."
Red Bull were down in the speed traps and Helmut Marko revealed the team had the wrong rear wing which has put them on the back foot.
However, after topping the timesheets in both practice sessions, Hamilton was left mystified by Mercedes’ surprisingly strong pace after a poor showing in Interlagos last time out.
The seven-time world champion clocked the fastest lap of the day as drivers up and down the grid struggled to extract performance around the low-grip track.
His team-mate George Russell was similarly impressive, finishing in P2 and P3 across the two sessions to indicate that Mercedes are the team to beat this weekend.
“I mean that’s the first time I’ve had a day like that this year. The car was feeling generally good in FP1, in FP2 less so," Hamilton said.
“Difficult to know exactly where we are or why we are where we are but really enjoying driving the track and I think we’ll see whether the car is the same tomorrow.
“The race pace is not that great so the work we have to do overnight is to figure out how to have better race pace without losing actual pace throughout the lap.
"But it was nice to get like consecutive sectors, and the car not throwing me off which was nice."
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