© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff calls Lewis Hamilton‘s disqualification “sad”, and explains their car’s rear wing failed the FIA’s tests by just 0.2mm.
At Saturday’s Brazilian Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying Race Lewis Hamilton fought back from P20 to P5, after being disqualified from Friday’s Qualifying due to a DRS related technical infringement.
After the race Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff told Lewis on the radio: “Lewis, brilliant job. Damage limitation. F*** them all”, to which the Briton replied: “Copy. It’s not over yet.”
After the Sprint Race Wolff was asked to explain what he meant by those comments.
“I obviously didn’t mean anything towards the regulations,” he told Sky Sports F1.
“It’s generally a mindset that we have that sometimes when there is hardship you need to build up resilience, and that’s what was meant by saying ‘f*** them all’.”
Wolff also showed he was annoyed that Lewis was disqualified with no tolerance, as Mercedes suspects the rear wing in question was damaged in Qualifying.
“I think how the process went from telling us, discovering that we’ve marginally failed the test, we are speaking 0.2 of a millimetre, to not allowing this to be fixed, like the normal protocol would be, but rather it being reported to the stewards, the bullet was out of the gun.
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“I think that put the stewards in a very difficult situation to come up with the right judgement. But, to be honest, until late this afternoon, we believed that it was okay.
“The wing was damaged. One side was okay, the middle was okay. The right side was not okay, and that means we actually had a performance disadvantage.
“So we thought that, in consideration of all these aspects, the FIA would say there was damage and therefore we weren’t in breach of the regulations. They also said there was nothing that happened with intent from our side.
“But then we were reading disqualified, which honestly, I couldn’t believe. I thought that [sporting director] Ron Meadows was making a joke when I saw the WhatsApp.
“So strange things happen. But you have to take it on the chin, and the last 60 minutes of motor racing, from Valtteri [Bottas] and from Lewis, brought all the enjoyment back with all of frustrations that happened before.”
The Austrian reveals Mercedes was still unable to inspect the rear wing, as it has yet to be returned to the team.
“We haven’t got the wing back. The wing stays with FIA all weekend, and we couldn’t evaluate what the damage was beyond the visual look that our number one [mechanic] Nathan [Divey] had whilst the test was being performed.
“He came back and said something’s broken because of the odd behaviour of the rear wing.”
Wolff also explains why Mercedes decided not to appeal the ruling.
“The point is that yesterday the car was being tested, and today, two hours before the race we got the information we were disqualified.
“That is, in a way, sad. There are procedures in Formula 1, certain modus operandi, a protocol you have to follow, and we had a car that was in breach of the regulations of the 85mm slot gap.
“We failed consecutive tests by the tiniest of margins, and in the past, that would have meant fixing it.
“We’ve seen it with the Red Bull rear wing this weekend. We have had many barge board things, bit failures that were put back because the FIA has our cut drawings, they had the wings.
“We wanted to leave the wing with them so they could cut it into a thousand pieces. We weren’t allowed to look at the wing, it was simply damaged through qualifying.
“None of these arguments counted, and fair enough, the stewards did their job. We failed that one test, and their argument needs to be respected.
“This is why we also decided not to appeal the decision, simply because of these philosophical reasons.
“If the stewards decide, then you have to take it on the chin and it goes both ways,” concluded Mercedes’ team boss.
