© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff praises Mercedes’ strategists, but jokes they were wrong when they predicted Lewis Hamilton would catch Max Vestappen one lap to the end of the Spanish Grand Prix.
There’s no doubt that Mercedes’ brilliant and unexpected strategy was one of the main components of Lewis Hamilton’s success at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Mercedes called Lewis in for a second pit stop when he was extremely close to Verstappen, banking on him being able to again catch up to and overtake the Dutch driver on fresher tyres.
They were correct in assuming that the seven-time champion would be able to do it, but they were wrong in one key detail – they predicted Lewis would catch up on the last lap of the race, but he actually managed to overtake Verstappen four laps to the end.
“The atmosphere was fantastic and I really need to take my hat off from the group of strategists, led by James [Vowles] and all the group back in Brackley,” Wolff said.
“We had almost faultless execution and today we were behind. We were behind but we were able to, or we were in a position to, make that call because we had the gap.
“They are just fantastic and the mathematicians and strategists coming up with all the simulations.
“You ask for a plan… And in our plan, if we had to stop now, we would end up catching him one lap to the end, and we would have a tyre differential of 1.4s, and we believed that it is enough and we trust them and we trust the data.
“But they were terribly wrong. We caught him four laps to the end,” joked the Austrian.
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Wolff goes on to say he believes Red Bull has better pace during qualifying, while Mercedes has the edge in the race.
“I think on pace it very much swings in Red Bull’s favour on Saturday, probably on Sunday towards us. Our car seems to be good on the tyres.
“Then you have less to lose, you end up second on the road where you are anyway, or first. It was nevertheless still a difficult call, because Lewis was so close to Max, in his DRS before he decided to go on the two-stop.
“And this is really where the strategy team comes into play, saying the probability’s higher that we overtake them at the end of the race than now on a tyre that is only five laps younger.”
In the end Mercedes’ team boss praised his team and their mindset.
“The guys and girls in the team are doing a really good job. Even on the days we lose, we learn and I think the mindset is right.
“And when our car’s not quick enough we’re still able to extrapolate good performances. But we never rest, never have any sense of entitlement.
“In two weeks it can swing in the other direction, and then it will be a weekend to learn,” concluded Wolff.
