Heading into this fourth round, the optimism with which Mercedes had entered the season has long since evaporated and instead Wolff conceded in the build up to the Japanese GP that he had to lead from the front on the ground, and opted to fly out and join the team. “I think it’s important to be with the race team also. We are experimenting with a few things and then being part of the team really gives me energy. The car is unstable and unpredictable in differing conditions, with the team admitting that once more there was a lack of correlation between predicted performance in the wind tunnel and the reality on track. “It’s just different every single corner, there’s no way you can know to get it right,” he said. It’s just different in every single corner and at different yaw and different speeds.

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