Toto Wolff explains Mercedes' decision to pit Hamilton: "When we made the call"
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- GPblog.com
Toto Wolff has seen Lewis Hamilton take his 100th win in Formula 1 in the rain. Initially, Hamilton didn't think he needed to go in for intermediates, but when Mercedes saw Max Verstappen also going to the green walled tyre, the choice was quickly made.
"I think we are witnesses of a career that is just amazing - 100 race victories. It's just mind-blowing," Wolff said to Sky Sports' camera. According to the Mercedes team boss, it's something we don't really know how special it is right now. "Today, we talk about it and it will be in the news for 24 hours, but only many years down the line we will realise we were part of it."
On lap 46, the first drops fell on the Sochi circuit. Hamilton had just joined Norris at that point. "I think that it would have been very difficult because we struggled to overtake Ricciardo even with the DRS. So, Norris managed it really well so it would have been difficult but who knows."
Verstappen as an example
It wasn't until the last three laps that it really started to rain hard. "Rich, who runs the weather and the reliability on the pits was adamant that the weather was coming in and it started to drizzle and only half of the circuit was humid. That is when we made the call that we have to pit and we did," explained Wolff.