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Wolff thinks Racing Point's choice to bring in Stroll "was right at the time"

16 November 2020 at 06:57
  • GPblog.com

Toto Wolff didn't see Lewis Hamilton make any mistakes in Turkey last Sunday. The Austrian boss is impressed by the performance of the Mercedes driver. Wolff further states that it was remarkable that driving with a second set of intermediates didn't work out well towards the end of the race.

“His driving was impeccable,” Wolff is quoted by Racefans.net, among others. From sixth on the grid, Hamilton fought his way forward. “There was not one thing, not one foot he put wrong today whilst everybody else did. With a car that was, today, the interaction with the tyres, for sure not the best car.”

The tyres played a hugely important role. We started on the full laws, but the switch to the intermediates could already be made relatively quickly. Hamilton continued to drive the entire race on that green tire. “The tyres went through different phases. You could see that most of the people who bolted on a new set of intermediates and pushed very hard had graining after a couple of laps only. And from then on the tyre didn’t recover," said the Mercedes team boss.

Wolff defends Racing Point strategy

Not everyone expected that. It even cost Lance Stroll his first-ever F1 win. "Lance [Stroll] was leading the race solid and put on the new tyre, which I think at that time was the right strategy, and just dropped back. And the same with Max [Verstappen]," Wolff added.