© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says that the decision not to pit Lewis Hamilton to switch to dry tyres on race restart was “100% the right decision”.
After the big collision on race start, the Hungarian Grand Prix was red flagged. During the formation lap ahead of the standing race restart, all drivers entered the pits to switch from intermediate to dry tyres.
All except Lewis Hamilton. This led to a surreal image of Lewis restarting the race alone on the grid. He had to pit immediately on his first lap, which dropped him to the back of the field.
However, despite this, Toto Wolff stands by his original decision not to put Lewis on dry tyres immediately.
“I think [it was] 100% the right decision, and I stand by it,” the Austrian said.
“At the end, you need to make the call out there and judge whether it’s dry enough or not. I thought that within one lap, it couldn’t possibly dry up like it did, and at the end, you have to take it on the chin that it was the wrong outcome.
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“But the decision was right. We calculated that he would have come out sixth with the train of cars going into the pits.
“Now you are more clever, but it is what it is.”
Hamilton ultimately finished the race in P3, but he could have finished even higher had he not been held up by Fernando Alonso for several laps.
“We could have won today,” Wolff continued.
“We lost a lot of time behind Fernando, and that made Esteban win the race, and that is good.”
