Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff reckons Sebastian Vettel had the pace to w🐓in the United States Grand Prix “easily” had he avoided a spin on the opening lap.

A spin while battling Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo on the fꩲirst lap in Austin sent Vettel tumbling down the order, before the German recovered to finish fourth to delay title rival Lewis Hamilton’s championship celebrations.

Vettel pulled off a late pass on Valtteri Bottas and finished the race just 18 seconds behind Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen, leadiꦍng Wolff to believe he would have challenged had he not lost ground at the start.

“I think im🎉agine Sebastian not spinning out on Lap 1, I think he would have probably won the race easily,” Wolff conceded.

“It’s stressful, the drivers’ championship, we’re in a solid position, but I always said we m꧂ustn’t drop the ball. We’ve seen that in the past with other teams, and with the constructors’ championship, that is very important for the team.

“Nothing is done yet. There are 129 points to be scored 🐼with 66 that we have. Of course that is a good buffer but there is no reason to giggle away and think that you have the trophy in your hand because we can see that we haven’t got in our hand♛s.”

Mercedes committed Hamilton 🃏to a two-stop strategy as he was caught out by tyre💛 blistering on the Soft compound, which curtailed his late attack on leaders Raikkonen and Max Verstappen.

Hamilton ul🔯timately settled for third but Wolff was convinced his team’s performance was simply not strong enough to win at the Circuit of the A꧋mericas for a fifth time.

“It was not a good day for us, and I feel that. But for Formula 1, I think there was some really spectacular racing between Max and Kimi✱ and Lewis💖,” he said.

“Fundamentally today we la⛦cked pace. We ran out of tyre, and that was𒊎 the underlying reason why we lost the race.”

Aske💮d if the Austin result worried him, Wolff replied:🅠 “Yeah, it does. We had three really good races, four really good races.

“Thing🐲s were going our way and we understood, but today we had a car that was not quick enough. We need to find out why that was.”