Toto Wolff says his comments about Lewis Hamilton’s departure from Mercedes did not reflect the seven-time world champion losing any of his ability to win in Formula 1. A new Mercedes book – titled ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ – featured Wolff explaining …
Toto Wolff says his comments about Lewis Hamilton’s departure from Mercedes did not reflect the seven-time world champion losing any of his ability to win in Formula 1.
A new Mercedes book – titled ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ – featured Wolff explaining the timing of Hamilton’s decision to move to Ferrari and how it left him no time to react. Wolff added that he liked the situation it left him in, though, adding: “There’s a reason why we only signed a one-plus-one-year contract.
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“We’re in a sport where cognitive sharpness is extremely important, and I believe everyone has a shelf life. So I need to look at the next generation.”
However, the Mercedes team principal insists he was not directly referencing Hamilton and his current performance level, and that he believes the 39-year-old is still able to produce his best performances if given the machinery.
“You know that was taken a little bit out of context,” Wolff told BBC Radio 4. “What I was referring to was that all of us age, whether it is in a car, on a pitch, or as a manager or entrepreneur. And that is what I am trying to do with myself, understand, ‘Am I going from great to good?’ Because good is not in Formula 1 anymore.
“Now contrary to my own self-assessment, I think we see with Lewis that he’s very much there when the car is right. And we haven’t been able to give him that car to perform his best, and that is a frustration that we share equally in the team, and for himself.
“But he’s very sharp. He’s different to when he was a 20-year-old, that’s certainly clear. But his experience and his race craft is tremendous.”
Heading into the final triple-header of the season, starting with this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, Wolff added he is still challenging Mercedes to deliver a positive send-off for Hamilton as it looks to recover from a tough run of races in Austin, Mexico City and Sao Paulo.
“We are focused on ending this year as strongly as possible and providing some more highlights as we close out 2024. We are looking forward to the races ahead, to ending our incredible journey with Lewis on a high and to building momentum for 2025.”
Toto Wolff says the timing of Lewis Hamilton’s decision to move to Ferrari left him unable to react in the driver market. Hamilton signed with Ferrari at the start of this year, with the seven-time world champion moving to Maranello in 2025. The …
Toto Wolff says the timing of Lewis Hamilton’s decision to move to Ferrari left him unable to react in the driver market.
Hamilton signed with Ferrari at the start of this year, with the seven-time world champion moving to Maranello in 2025. The announcement of the switch was made on February 1, prior to the start of the current season but a matter of weeks after multiple leading drivers had signed contract extensions at their current teams, something Wolff says caught him out.
“I always see an opportunity in change,” Wolff said in the recently-released book ‘Inside Mercedes F1: Life in the Fast Lane’. “For a minute, I was in disbelief at the timing of it. The next we talked about what it meant for the team.
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“I like the situation. It helps us because it avoids the moment where we need to tell the sport’s most iconic driver that we went to stop.
“There’s a reason why we only signed a one-plus-one-year contract. We’re in a sport where cognitive sharpness is extremely important, and I believe everyone has a shelf life. So I need to look at the next generation. It’s the same in soccer. Managers like Sir Alex Ferguson or Pep Guardiola. They anticipated it in the performance of their top stars and brought in junior players who drove the team for the next years.
“I absolutely had it on my radar that Lewis would go. I just couldn’t understand why he’d change to another team before we knew if we were going to be competitive. It also didn’t give me any time to react. I had to emergency call our partners, and I possibly missed out on negotiating with other drivers who had signed contracts a few weeks earlier like Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.”
Wolff was reflecting on the situation nearer the time, and despite it leaving him with a tough decision to make – eventually promoting Andrea Kimi Antonelli – he says it was not damaging to the relationship between himself and Hamilton.
“It put us on the back foot, and that had a commercial impact. But do I take that personally? This was a business decision. We’ve enjoyed such a successful journey together, and now we have our own objectives. This didn’t even move the needle for me. I’m thick-skinned. I’ve had some pretty tough moments in my life, and this doesn’t compare.”
Mercedes is going to have to limit the parts it manufactures due to cost cap pressures caused by recent heavy crashes, according to team principal Toto Wolff. George Russell crashed heavily in qualifying in Austin and did so again in practice in …
Mercedes is going to have to limit the parts it manufactures due to cost cap pressures caused by recent heavy crashes, according to team principal Toto Wolff.
George Russell crashed heavily in qualifying in Austin and did so again in practice in Mexico City, despite running different specifications of car both times. That followed a big crash for Kimi Antonelli on his FP1 debut at Monza three races before the triple header, and Wolff says the cumulative cost will have an impact on Mercedes’ plans for the rest of the season.
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“Kimi’s crash at Monza, George’s crash in Austin, George’s crash [in Mexico], which… I love a driver to push, and I’d rather him crash and we know what the car is capable of doing than not,” Wolff said. “In cost cap land, that’s a tricky situation, so these three shunts put us on the back foot.
“Certainly the one that happened [in FP1 in Mexico] was massive. We had to opt for a completely new chassis. That is a tremendous hit on the cost cap. And we probably have to dial down on what we put on the car.
“So we will be having two upgrade packages in Brazil, two floors, but that’s basically it. There’s nothing else that’s going to come. We have certain limitation on parts where we need to be creative, how we’re managing this, and certainly there is an impact. There is an impact on how many development parts we can put on the car, because the answer is zero.”
Despite the limitations on parts and concerns over the budget cap, Wolff says he never felt it would be right to stop Russell and Lewis Hamilton from racing each other in Mexico, allowing them to fight over fourth place.
“They’re so good and so experienced that we allow the racing. At the beginning, I have no doubt, there was not a feeling where I thought, it’s getting a bit hairy. I think we made the call to George at the end where it was clear that Lewis had the faster car, that maybe that one defense on the straight was a bit of a late move. I don’t have any doubts about the two.”
Toto Wolff says Mercedes is hoping its upgrade for the United States Grand Prix will allow it to end the season in strong fashion and sign off its partnership with Lewis Hamilton on a high. Hamilton is moving to Ferrari in 2025 having been part of …
Toto Wolff says Mercedes is hoping its upgrade for the United States Grand Prix will allow it to end the season in strong fashion and sign off its partnership with Lewis Hamilton on a high.
Hamilton is moving to Ferrari in 2025 having been part of the Mercedes team since 2013, winning six of his seven drivers’ championships with the team. Mercedes will be bringing its final development package of the year to Circuit of the Americas this weekend, and Wolff says the aim is for it to make the team more competitive in both the short and long-term, but also give Hamilton a chance of adding to this season’s two victories.
“This weekend marks the start of an intense run to the end of the year,” Wolff said. “We have six races over the next eight weeks, ending with the season finale in Abu Dhabi. Although we are not in contention for the championships, there is still plenty to fight for and the opportunity to create a few highlights along the way. We want to end this year as strongly as possible, build momentum for 2025, and bid farewell to Lewis in the best way possible.
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“We have therefore been hard at work since Singapore analyzing our performance and how we can improve. We bring our final update package of the season to Texas and our aim is to close the gap to the front. It will also provide useful information that will help guide our development direction for 2025.”
Last year’s race in Austin saw Hamilton in the mix for victory only to be disqualified post-race for having excessive wear on his plank, and Wolff says Mercedes needs to be wary of its set-up due to the fact it will only have one practice session to dial in its upgrade.
“The Sprint format returns this weekend, and we will have to be at our best to introduce the update package effectively. The Circuit of the Americas is a fantastic track but one that caught us out last year. Its high-speed layout, combined with its bumpy surface, make it a challenge for both the car and driver. It is one we are looking forward to.”
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Daniel Ricciardo taking the fastest lap point away from Lando Norris at the Singapore Grand Prix was not a dirty play. Norris dominated the race in Singapore and had the fastest lap to his name when RB opted …
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Daniel Ricciardo taking the fastest lap point away from Lando Norris at the Singapore Grand Prix was not a dirty play.
Norris dominated the race in Singapore and had the fastest lap to his name when RB opted to pit Ricciardo for a third time to fit a new set of soft tires. Having already been last on the road, Ricciardo then set the fastest lap while Norris was on his final lap, ensuring Norris did not get the extra point that comes with setting the fastest lap as long as you finish inside the top ten.
McLaren team principal Zak Brown has said he will ask questions of the process behind the decision from RB given Red Bull’s ownership of the team, but Wolff downplayed any potential controversy.
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“I think you’re going to probably play all strategies that you have,” Wolff said. “I don’t think it was a dirty play, not at all. It could come down to a point, [but] it was within the regulations. The drivers weren’t unfair with each other. I think it’s just an extra point. No big deal.”
Wolff also had his own matters to deal with as Mercedes faded from starting with both cars on the second row to finish a distant fourth and sixth with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton respectively.
“It was a really painful, painful evening. It’s not about when you look at the positions, fourth and sixth – that’s not good, especially when you’re starting second and third. The car is just… we struggle at the moment with tracks that are hot and tough on traction.
“It was here, it was in Baku, but this is no excuse. I think it’s just at the moment not what we expect from ourselves. Because if your quickest car is a minute behind the leader then it’s just difficult to accept.”
Wolff wouldn’t let the unusual strategy of starting Hamilton on the soft tire from third place cloud the wider disappointment in Mercedes’ pace in Singapore.
“I think we’ve read the race wrong. We took a decision based on historic Singapore races where it’s basically a procession like Monaco, and that the soft tire would give him an opportunity at the start as pretty much the only overtaking opportunity. And that was the wrong decision that we all took together jointly.
“It felt like a good offset, but with the rear tire degradation that we had, there was just one way, and that was backwards. So I think there was a logic behind it, but obviously it was contrary to what we should have decided.
“But it doesn’t hide away from the fact that when a car is too slow, you’re too slow. Maybe you’re a position ahead or behind, but that doesn’t change anything.”
Mercedes passed on the opportunity to try and sign Adrian Newey but is likely to be facing stiff competition from Aston Martin in future as a result, according to Toto Wolff. Current Red Bull chief technical officer Newey will join Aston Martin in …
Mercedes passed on the opportunity to try and sign Adrian Newey but is likely to be facing stiff competition from Aston Martin in future as a result, according to Toto Wolff.
Current Red Bull chief technical officer Newey will join Aston Martin in 2025, where there have been a number of other key hires in recent years including former Mercedes power unit boss Andy Cowell. Ferrari was also believed to be chasing Newey’s services once his departure from Red Bull was announced, and Wolff says Mercedes also looked into it before opting against restructuring its technical department.
“Well every team kind of, I think, gave it a thought,” Wolff said. “James [Allison] and I discussed it, elaborated about it, and came to the conclusion that the structure that we have today is the one that we have faith in and we want to continue with. Having said that, also we have great respect for Newey, but we passed on that one because we believe in our [current structure].”
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And Wolff believes the partnership of Newey and Cowell – who is group chief technical officer at Aston Martin – gives Lawrence Stroll’s team every chance of joining McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes in fighting at the front in Formula 1.
“I think the track record that Adrian has in Formula 1 speaks for itself. A great designer, the greatest designer in Formula 1 when you look at the stats, and if you combine it with somebody like Andy Cowell who is, for me, one of the strongest leaders I have ever met in any industry, and if they can make that work, I think it’s a package to be reckoned with.
“But it’s good. The more teams that are competitive at the front, you look at the race [in Baku] from a fan’s standpoint – I wish we would have played there in the front – but it was marvelous. I think four drivers now that race for the drivers’ world championship as it stands, and McLaren’s taken the lead in the constructors’ – who would have thought of that five months ago?
“So if a team like Aston Martin, with this great name, can be part of the leading group it would be fantastic.”
Wolff also believes the current picture at the front of the field is so close that there appear to be bigger fluctuations in form just based on tracks that suit specific cars more than others.
“You look at the qualifying performances that we had, where we were first and second in Silverstone and we were first [in the race] with Lewis [Hamilton] in Spa, so that wasn’t much more performance in qualifying and in the race, but between those eight cars it can swing that way.
“Because we are not talking about tonnes of time, we are talking about two or three tenths in the direction then you have an outlier like [Charles] Leclerc in Baku or in Monza, where they have always been strong. So as a matter of fact this is about who is getting the balance as good as possible, who is having the tires in the right window and what kind of aero concept works well at a given track.
“I will be quite curious to see what happens after Singapore. Ferrari was quite strong there last year, so I have no doubt that is the third in a row where they can race for the win. Red Bull wasn’t last year. We were doing okay, McLaren was doing okay, so it’s four teams now that are very close.”
Toto Wolff says he made his choice to promote Andrea Kimi Antonelli five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told him he was leaving for Ferrari. Hamilton shocked many in Formula 1 with his decision to leave Mercedes for Ferrari, announcing the switch at …
Toto Wolff says he made his choice to promote Andrea Kimi Antonelli five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told him he was leaving for Ferrari.
Hamilton shocked many in Formula 1 with his decision to leave Mercedes for Ferrari, announcing the switch at the start of February despite having signed a new contract only five months earlier. When given that news, Wolff says he knew he wanted to put Antonelli into the seat, although delayed a final decision while exploring the potential of attracting Max Verstappen from Red Bull.
“I made up my mind five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told me he was going to Ferrari,” Wolff said. “Obviously we were discussing with other options, and obviously the Max idea couldn’t be discounted completely looking at what happened at Red Bull, but instinctively that is the lineup that I always wanted. Bearing in mind the fast tracking that we did with Kimi and everything that we did there too, but it was immediately what I wanted to do.”
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With Antonelli joining George Russell, Mercedes has only confirmed its line-up for 2025 at this stage, and Wolff admits there are multiple options in place that don’t guarantee the same pairing beyond that point.
“These two are the future — they have been and will be Mercedes drivers. Therefore we have contracts with George and Kimi that go much longer that are very complicated in terms of options, etc. This is a pressure cooker, Mercedes always has been a pressure cooker, but this is where we stand as a team today, we want to go with these two.
“Like we have done in the past, we have always had very short contracts. Even with Lewis the last time it came around it was one plus one. This is in a way how the team operated. But I think what’s most important is to see how George and Kimi settle in, and I see no reason at that stage not giving them the faith and the trust of going forward.
“What that means for the terms is something that we will discuss between ourselves, but we wouldn’t have gone for the lineup with these two if we wouldn’t believe 100 percent that they are the best choice for Mercedes.”
Wolff has openly spoken of his interest in signing Verstappen in the past, and would not rule out a future move for the Dutchman even after committing to a line-up with an average age of 22 years old.
“What I appreciate also in dealing with them is they’re straightforward and transparent. I don’t flirt outside, I’ve always said it. I got maybe caught out by the Lewis situation, but I have not entertained any discussions with any drivers. We’re giving all from the team to make it a success, and this is why all of our focus in the team is on George and Kimi. And that’s where I also stand.
“There is no discussion, there is no second thoughts about what we’re doing in 2026, because now it’s about 2024 and 2025. And if flirting outside happens, then they will know it, these guys will know it at the same time, when we have those discussions. I’ve always been open.”
Toto Wolff described Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s pace as “just astonishing” prior to his crash in FP1 at the Italian Grand Prix, and says the incident won’t impact Mercedes’ decision on his future. Antonelli went fastest overall with his first timed lap …
Toto Wolff described Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s pace as “just astonishing” prior to his crash in FP1 at the Italian Grand Prix, and says the incident won’t impact Mercedes’ decision on his future.
Antonelli went fastest overall with his first timed lap on his FP1 debut at Monza in the car normally run for George Russell, and was looking set to take top spot once again from teammate Lewis Hamilton before crashing heavily at the final corner on his second run. Despite Antonelli’s session ending after just 10 minutes, Mercedes team principal Wolff says he’s already shown eye-catching pace.
“Most importantly, he’s OK, because the crash was 45G, so that’s important,” Wolff said. “Second priority is to get the car ready for George so the program doesn’t suffer too much, which hopefully is going to be OK. We may run a little bit late, but it’s going to be OK.
“And the third one, yeah, it’s unfortunate, because I guess having had an hour to run, we would have seen some good performances. But that’s what we always said: He’s a rookie, he’s very young, we are prepared to invest into his future and these moments, they will happen and they will continue to happen next year. But there will also be a lot of highlights.
“I think what we’ve seen today was…. We’d rather have a problem in slowing him down than making him faster. Because what we’ve seen from one and a half laps is just astonishing.”
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Wolff says Antonelli was apologetic when he returned to the garage after the crash, and believes the young Italian was simply caught out by the grip on offer from his tires as he turned in for Parabolica.
“He apologized, first of all, and I think this is what you need to do when you bring a car back that looks a little bit like a Lego box falling on the floor. But also he said that he felt so much confidence, the car was good. And I guess he was just bitten.
“Everybody suffered from temperature and especially rear temperature out of Ascari with these kinds of speeds and that’s why the rear went away and stepped out.”
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) August 30, 2024
Wolff suggested Antonelli will get another outing in FP1 in Mexico City, and says the crash is part of the 18-year-old’s learning curve and won’t have a negative impact on the likelihood of him getting the vacant race seat in 2025.
“I think a strong driver needs to recover from these things and cope with the pressure. And obviously this weekend wasn’t easy for him because he still needs to compete in F2,” Wolff noted. “You have all these shenanigans around you in Monza — Italian kid that’s being hyped for the first time in a Mercedes — and that must be a heavy burden. If he wants to be a champion one day, he needs to cope with that, and I have no doubt that he can and he will.
“No, zero effect [on the 2025 decision]. I think most important is to hire based on ability. And an FP1 that’s gone wrong is not the reason why you decide for or against the driver.”
Make no mistake, Mercedes is back in the Formula 1 game. It took a while to truly believe McLaren could be a contender at every venue when it started finding performance last year, and the Miami upgrade this season cemented its place at the top …
Make no mistake, Mercedes is back in the Formula 1 game.
It took a while to truly believe McLaren could be a contender at every venue when it started finding performance last year, and the Miami upgrade this season cemented its place at the top table. But still there have been occasions that Red Bull’s raw pace has been unlocked and proven to be out of reach for spells of races.
But now it’s not just McLaren that puts itself in positions to win races and show performance that can trouble Red Bull, with Mercedes clearly quick enough in Canada, solid if unspectacular in Spain and Austria, and the fastest car for big chunks of the Silverstone weekend.
When it’s this close, the form book will always fluctuate. It happened even during the race on Sunday as one moment the Mercedes looked comfortably quickest, then it was the McLaren in changing conditions, then from nowhere Max Verstappen was making the hard tire work and climbing back into contention.
Yet it was vintage Lewis Hamilton that sealed victory, as he timed his final pit stop perfectly, took on a soft tire that was going to give him the best chance of winning, and then made it last far better than the McLaren of Lando Norris that was trying to chase him down.
Don’t forget it has been McLaren that has looked best at tire usage in recent races, but Hamilton has always had that touch, he’s just rarely had the clear air and victory in his sights to show it since the end of 2021.
Hamilton might not have had the fastest car at Silverstone, but he provided another example of what he can do when opportunities present themselves. Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
A record ninth victory at Silverstone — breaking a tie with Michael Schumacher’s eight at Magny-Cours — extends his overall mark of 104 race wins and sets a new record for the biggest gap between first and last wins. With Sunday’s sort of performance, you’d be brave to suggest he won’t keep pushing those milestones even further.
While it was particularly notable how much it meant to Hamilton as he broke down in tears over team radio afterwards and emotionally embraced his family in parc ferme — taking them to the fan stage with him following the race, too — there was another reaction that was equally eye-catching. And that was from his team principal Toto Wolff.
Hamilton and Wolff used to be a formidable pairing. After the departure of Nico Rosberg at the end of 2016, the pair felt almost unstoppable as Wolff oversaw the ongoing dominance of Mercedes and Hamilton brilliantly utilized the machinery he had at his disposal. When he made the difference, Wolff let the world know, and the pair’s clear faith in each other was regularly on display.
That partnership is reaching its conclusion, though, and it was actually when emotions were heightened after a major success that it became clear just how the impending split had changed the dynamic.
Hamilton’s tears were matched by the outpouring of delight from his race engineer Peter Bonnington, but then came a calm and controlled message over the radio from Wolff:
“Lewis, we will prevail, we never give up, and what a sign-off for our joint-trajectory here at the British Grand Prix. We couldn’t wish for anything better.”
The words were met with silence from Hamilton, not even an acknowledgement of the comments. Perhaps he was still too emotional to respond, but the original message was notable for its lack of praise or congratulations, and so the absence of a reply also stood out.
It’s not a criticism of either side, but it’s a reminder of the fact that this is a collaboration that both feel has run its course. Hamilton was upset with Mercedes’ lack of commitment to him in recent contract negotiations, leaving the door open to replace him by only offering a one-year deal with the option for a second year that either side could choose not to invoke.
When Ferrari came knocking with a far greater show of faith in a longer-term future — for a variety of reasons — then Hamilton was the one who activated that release clause and chose to start a new chapter in his career.
It was a decision that has left Wolff trying to find the right partner for George Russell, and while he has been understandably coveting Max Verstappen for so long, the growing inclusion of Carlos Sainz’s name back into a mix that also includes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli shows a succession plan was not quite yet in place, or at the very least not yet ready to be implemented.
It has left Wolff on the back foot, and not in a position to be the one to call the shots on his driver lineup for 2025. Hamilton forced him into a change that wasn’t yet ready to be made from the team’s side, even if Wolff knew the day was going to come at some stage.
Like Hamilton, Wolff is a serial winner, and the pair have a very strong focus on the future. Knowing that the future no longer involves each other beyond the end of this season has certainly weakened the bond between a driver and team that have been synonymous with each other, and with success, over the past decade.
But even though that became even more clear as a result of the win at Silverstone, the impressive performance also displays the underlying strength of a Hamilton-Mercedes combination when the car gives the seven-time world champion a chance of victory.
For the partnership to remain as amicable and positive as possible between now and the end of the year, Mercedes will need to continue on the current trajectory that has it fighting for wins once again. Although that will likely lead to some tough moments between two drivers who have shown their race-winning abilities over the past two weekends, it is the main motivating factor behind both Hamilton and Wolff’s raison d’être.
There might be more wins ahead, and tears again when the era finally comes to an end in Abu Dhabi, but Silverstone showed the sentimentality between the two only extends so far. It never made them successful in the past, and they’re both so focused on becoming champions again in the future that neither is going to change that now.
Lewis Hamilton’s victory in his last British Grand Prix for Mercedes is “like a little fairytale,” according to team principal Toto Wolff. Mercedes failed to win a race in 2023 while Hamilton’s own drought extended to the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand …
Lewis Hamilton’s victory in his last British Grand Prix for Mercedes is “like a little fairytale,” according to team principal Toto Wolff.
Mercedes failed to win a race in 2023 while Hamilton’s own drought extended to the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but after George Russell’s victory in Austria it was Hamilton’s turn to stand on the top step again at Silverstone. The win is Hamilton’s ninth at his home race, and comes before he joins Ferrari in 2025, something Wolff admits is special.
“It was so difficult over the last two years [not really finding any] performance; we couldn’t give the drivers a car that was able to go for the victories,” Wolff said. “To make him win again, the British Grand Prix, in his last race for Mercedes here, it’s almost like a little fairytale.”
Wolff admits it was a challenging race to handle with the changing weather conditions, but also feels a sense of frustration after polesitter Russell was forced to retire with a water system issue.
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“It was difficult. We were really controlling the pace at the beginning and that was very encouraging,” he said. “Then it started to rain and you see the massive performance that the McLaren had, and they were simply in the sweet spot of the tire. But we came back in those conditions and I think we had it under control.
“It’s just a shame we DNF’d with George; he had the pace and we let him down here with a water leak. It’s just not great but the overarching result here with Lewis, last British Grand Prix… George is going to win one.”
Hamilton was particularly emotional after the race and, to Wolff, the latest victory feels like a long time coming, particularly after the seven-time world champion revealed he had doubts over whether he’d win another race.
“It’s clear our relationship goes back a long time,” Wolff said. “Each of us has suffered at various stages. He’s been there for me and most recently I’ve tried to do my contribution to his doubting at times. That’s why it feels really good that he’s been able to put all the negative thoughts, all the negativity aside, and come up with this performance. I think it’s a weight off his shoulders.”
