Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted that in today's German Grand Prix the team waited eight seconds before servicing Nico Rosberg's car rather than five required to serve his in-race penalty, as the team's stopwatch broke.
Rosberg passed Max Verstappen's Red Bull at the hairpin on lap 28 of today's Hockenheim race, but later had to take a five-second penalty for 'forcing another car off the track' in the manouvere, to be served at his next pit stop.
But observers noticed that the team waited over eight seconds before servicing the Mercedes, something Wolff said was simply down to their stopwatch breaking.
"Even in a Formula One team with all the high tech if you get to take out an instrument you usually don't use like a stopwatch they can fail" he said, "and the stopwatch didn't start properly and once we realised we had to take it safe and this is why it took longer than normal.
"The damn thing failed."
On the incident with Verstappen that got Rosberg his penalty, Wolff's main concern was steward consistency. "What I'd like to have is consistent penalties, so everybody knows what to do.
"People get pushed out of the circuit all the time, one has been penalised the other not.
"I can sympathise with the five-second penalty, it's not that I'm saying it was completely wrong it's just important to know if and when and what the penalty is."
Rosberg's race initially went wrong with a very poor start, which dropped him from pole to fourth place at the first turn, which also was were he finished. "The initial getaway looked to be OK" said Wolff, "but probably the clutch was a bit overengaged and caused a lot of slip in the second phase."
Wolff admitted too that Rosberg's set-up seemed poor today too. "We had not really a good set-up overall, and he was lacking grip. When he was trying to go faster and trying to attack he probably overheated the tyres and lacked pace."
The Mercedes boss was confident however that Rosberg would bounce back in the title fight from his disappointing race. "There's still nine races to go, more than 200 points to collect" he said.
"You know on a day like today, you're having a s****y start, you're losing two positions, you battle your way back, you get penalised, instead of spending five seconds in the stands you're spending eight seconds in the stands. There is a human being in the car, and on top of that a set-up that probably overheated the tyres. So you put that all together…
"He's mentally very strong, and nothing's done yet…I've no doubt he will come back very strong in Spa."
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