Wolff explains why Mercedes 'expected more' in Abu Dhabi

Toto Wolff admits that Mercedes had "expected more" from their car at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix following a difficult race for the team.

George Russell ended the event in P5, while Lewis Hamilton recorded the Silver Arrows' first mechanical failure of the season when he was forced to retire in the latter stages of the Grand Prix.

Wolff acknowledges that the team's struggles with pace and tyre degradation were not something that they had fully anticipated.

"I think we pushed very hard at the beginning," Wolff told media, including TheFOXposts.Com.

"It looked like [in] the first few laps that we had real pace. [We were] expecting it to stabilise, but it didn't.

"On the Hard [tyre], we were pretty much – with Lewis – on the same trajectory, like all the other teams, but we expected more from the car in terms of tyre degradation that we actually had."

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Lewis Hamilton Hamilton reacts to first season without a win after Abu Dhabi DNF

Wolff: Mercedes need to analyse issue

Mercedes will investigate the issue further in order to understand why it happened, Wolff has stated.

"It's something which we need to analyse, because we gave up lap time in qualifying in order to be quick in the race, and that didn't materialise," the Team Principal explained.

The Silver Arrows' result in Abu Dhabi – which came just one week after their 1-2 victory in Brazil – meant that they were unable to challenge Ferrari for second place in the Constructors' Championship.

With Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz coming home in P2 and P4 respectively, the Scuderia ended the campaign on 554 points, giving them a 39-point edge over Mercedes in third.

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