© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
During and after the Brazilian Grand Prix Valtteri Bottas said he believed Mercedes made a mistake when they decided to go for a two-stop strategy.
After Mercedes called in Valtteri Bottas for his second pit stop at the Brazilian Grand Prix, the Finn told the team he thinks “we just threw away an easy 1-2”.
However, Toto Wolff says he doesn’t believe a one-stop race was the way to go.
“I’m not sure we could have held on to a one-stop,” the Austrian said.
“Maybe. But it was risky also to lose P3 against Perez. I think it was OK. It was maybe marginal between the two, but we didn’t want to risk the place to Perez.”
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin says the team had discussed a one-stop strategy, but they decided against it.
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“Valtteri felt it would work, and you gamble, but the problem is if you gamble wrong, then we could have risked a podium with Valtteri,” Shovlin said.
“With Lewis, when you think you can beat Max on the same strategy. you do that because we felt we had the car pace to really attack if we could get a bit of a tyre offset.
“So the option of going on an oddball strategy was discussed, but wasn’t that attractive because there is doubt and if you get it wrong you cannot win the race.
“You look at how Max dropped off on the hard tyre, it would’ve been very difficult and you have got to incorporate a lot of management,” concluded the Briton.
