Seeing a certain one-two finish taken away was “difficult to swallow” for Mercedes boss Toto Wolff at the British Grand Prix.
The German manufacturer had been absolutely dominant again on Sunday at Silverstone, but with just three laps to go, Valtteri Bottas suffered a puncture which would ultimately drop him out of the points in 11th.
“It was cruel,” said the Austrian. “Valtteri was in second, not losing too many points to Lewis for the championship, and really good for us in the Constructors’ Championship.
“At the moment we got settled in the ‘boring’ end of the race, cruise home with this one-two, there was drama and then when I realised that Valtteri was at completely the wrong end of the track with the failure, that was quite difficult to swallow.”
Mercedes then watched on as Lewis Hamilton suffered a very similar tyre failure of his own on the final lap, though he was, of course, able to nurse it home for victory.
But that did lead to questions about why the team didn’t do what Red Bull did with Max Verstappen, and pit the Briton after Bottas’ problem.
“That was exactly the discussion we had on the pitwall, ‘are we pitting or not?'” Wolff told Autosport.
“We had enough gap to Max [Verstappen], but it was only one lap to go, so the decision was taken not to pit and everything looked fine at that stage.
“We saw that Lewis’s tyre was in a better state. His front-left was in a better state than Valtteri’s and then it still looked a little bit random.
“And then obviously everything unfolded and suddenly the pictures of [Carlos] Sainz on the screen and a few moments later we saw that Lewis had the puncture.
“In hindsight, afterwards, a pitstop would have probably been better but in the end, we don’t know the root cause of the failure.
“We learn from that and if we have the gap, probably we will pit if the tyre is in a bad condition.”
Also Read:
The suspicion is debris, likely from Kimi Raikkonen’s front wing which broke shortly before the punctures, was responsible for the delaminations.
For the Mercedes boss though, the sting in the tail validated the continued caution he shows despite the pace advantage his team currently has.
“I know that I get lots of criticism when I point out that black swan events happen, but once you think everything is smooth, and you’re just cruising into the sunset, these things can unfold,” he explained.
“We could have easily lost two cars today, out of the points, and then the points advantage would have vanished in a second. We would have still had the fastest car at Silverstone, but come home with zero points.
“This is what I’m always pointing out, the championship is not over until it’s mathematically impossible for anybody else to catch us, and the race isn’t over until the flag drops.
“I’m not happy that my predictions come true sometimes for us but that’s also what I love about motor racing, that it’s just very unpredictable until the end.”
