Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has revealed that Lewis Hamilton had a say in his race-losing pit stop during the Monaco Grand Prix, but maintains the error was ultimately the team’s responsibility.
The Briton looked set for victory, what would have been his second in Monaco and fourth of the season, but a late pit-stop during a Safety Car period handed the lead to team-mate Nico Rosberg, whilst Hamilton slipped to third behind Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
Mercedes has come under intense scrutiny for their strategic error, citing incorrect data as the primary cause. Wolff however has revealed that they initially told Hamilton to stay out before quickly changing their mind when their driver replied with “not good”.
“We told him to stay out,” said Wolff on Twitter. “Lewis said ‘not good’ and that the tyres had lost temperature. We had one second to react and, combined with our wrong timing data, we made the mistake of calling him in.
“We’re not happy about the situation itself and therefore there was no such thing as happiness about that incident.”
Ultimately the mistake was the teams, as they’re responsible for ensuring the gap is there to make a stop. Wolff says the team believed they had enough time, but explained that incorrect timing data fooled them.
“We believed we could make a free stop to cover risk of cars behind on supersoft,” he added. “Unfortunately our data was wrong.
“You need the right balance between data and gut feeling. Our tools told us we had the gap but they were wrong. Under Safety Car you need 12 secs gap to maintain position. Our system showed us that we had that gap.”
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