Wolff explains where Mercedes got it wrong and 'what we should have done'

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell could only lock out the third row of the Interlagos grid with fifth and sixth places as they finished almost eight tenths of a second behind Max Verstappen, and were out-qualified by the two cars belonging to customer team Aston Martin.

Mercedes team principal Wolff admitted his side would have been better off mirroring the tactic used by Verstappen, who overtook both Russell and Hamilton as he wasted no time on his outlap and set what turned out to be a crucial lap before heavy rain stopped play early in Q3. 

“I think you see how marginal the differences are in terms of outlaps and temperatures,” Wolff told Sky. "I think we weren't adaptive enough.

“The Aston Martins just stormed away. Max straight out of the garage with warm tyres, also stormed away and those were the quickest cars. 

"We were a second off, or eight tenths off the quickest time, and it shows you what we should have done.” 

Asked where he thinks Mercedes could have qualified, Wolff replied: “I think between P1 and P8, everything is possible. 

“Even in the dry before, you are out of the garage, you are first, you have everything in the sweet-spot, you are on pole.”

Wolff added that McLaren made the same mistake as Mercedes but “got it even worse than us”.