Wolff: Lewis Hamilton’s refusal may have cost Mercedes success

The boss of the Mercedes team understands Lewis’s refusal: (e) I don’t want to be the bad general between the two drivers.

However, he maintains that Lewis Hamilton’s decision not to let Nico Rosberg pass may have cost the latter the victory. The Silver Arrows set two different strategies for their drivers. Nico Rosberg was supposed to make 3 stops while Lewis Hamilton, starting from the pits, was only supposed to make 2 stops.

Nico Rosberg therefore had to build a 22-second lead over Lewis Hamilton, the task was complicated because Lewis Hamilton is doing good stints. Towards the end of the race, after catching up with the Englishman, Nico Rosberg will stumble on his teammate.

« It is a difficult situation now […] because if Lewis had let Nico through then Nico could have won the race with a different strategy, » Toto Wolff told Sky Sports.

During the race, Lewis Hamilton did not let Nico Rosberg pass and according to him it was the right decision. A decision that paid off as he finished ahead of the leader of the world drivers’ championship at the finish.

However, Toto Wolff qualifies his remarks: « We had to divide the strategy because what was going to happen was not clear. One strategy would inevitably be better than the other … you easily let your teammate pass, he wins the race, you lose 8 or 10 or 12 points to him and it puts a brake on your own [championship] campaign. I don’t want to play the bad general and tell them ‘You have to respect the rules’ – we could have intervened more strongly via the radio, Paddy [Lowe] could have intervened via the radio but he didn’t because it was very difficult to judge the situation, to know what was right, what was wrong, at this stage of the race. »

However Toto Wolff tried to defuse the situation by explaining that these responses were more like those of a business leader. The team’s Executive Director continued by stating that team orders were not the only thing that could harm the Silver Arrows’ triumph, as he had already confided.

He returns to the race conditions, being realistic about his team’s situation: The team’s result suffered from many things that happened during the race, with the safety car the first 3 drivers suffered, we had a braking problem after the safety car came in, many things went wrong. It would be wrong to summarize the situation to a single element and say, ‘That’s why Nico didn’t win the race.’ In fact, when Nico was behind him [Hamilton], his pace dropped and he was never close to overtaking him. I think there are so many variables that come into play that you can’t summarize it to a single factor. There might be one, but we don’t know if Nico’s pace would have been fast enough to increase the gap that would have allowed him to win at the end of the race.

Mercedes has a lead of 174 points in the constructors’ championship over Red Bull after Sunday’s race, Wolff believes that the drivers can fight in the Belgian GP, rather than asking them to play the team game.

Nico Rosberg says that the Mercedes team will have to discuss internally whether Lewis Hamilton should have let him pass in Hungary: « I think we can’t wait for the second half of the season, the drivers behind us can be your main competitor. It is probably difficult now. »

Mercedes is the dominant force in this year’s championship, but Wolff admits he is troubled by the number of failures his team has suffered in Canada and Hungary: “Yes, reliability is our main concern, we had some issues with Lewis’s car in the race again, some fuel pressure issues in the car that need to be analyzed. We need to push hard and understand why these things are happening. We must stay calm now, analyze things and come back with more power and serenity after the summer break.”