Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff reckons ♍Sebastian Veꦡttel had the pace to win 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 first lap in Austin sent Vettel tumbling down the order, before the German recovered to finish fourth to delay title rival Lewis Hami𒈔lton’s championship celebrations.

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

“I think imagine Sebastian not spinning out on Lap 1, I think he woul💮d have probably won the race easil✱y,” Wolff conceded.

“It’s stressful, the drivers’ championship, we’re in a solid position, but I always said we mustn’t💧 drop the ball. We’ve seen that in the past with other teams, and with the constructors’ championship, that is v🔯ery 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 ther🐎e is no reason to g๊iggle away and think that you have the trophy in your hand because we can see that we haven’t got in our hands.”

Mercedes committed Hamilton to a two-stop st🦩rategy as he was caught out by tyre blistering on the Soft compou✱nd, which curtailed his late attack on leaders Raikkonen and Max Verstappen.

Hamilton ultimately settled for third but Wolff was convinced his team’s perfor๊mance was simply not strong enough to win at the Circuit of the Amer🐎icas for a fifth time.

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

“Fundamentally today we lacked pace. We ran ou💯t of tyre, and that was the underlying reason why we lost the race.”

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

“Things 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.💧”