Source: Mercedes-Benz Archive

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Wolff: Ordering Bottas to stand down in Russia broke my heart

Wolff: Ordering Bottas to stand down in Russia "broke my heart"

28-12-2018 13:23
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Nicolás Quarles van Ufford

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has admitted ordering his driver Valtteri Bottas to let teammate Lewis Hamilton past in Russia was "heartbreaking" for him, as Bottas had started the race on pole position and was on his way to win his first race of the season.

It's not been the year of Bottas, has it? He came really close to winning in both Bahrain and China, and when he did look like winning in Baku, he punctured his tyre only a few laps before the finish, throwing away all 25 points. 

Finally, in Russia, the Finn had put in a hell of a performance. On the stage where he won his first-ever race in 2017, he took pole again and drove away from the pack as the race went on. Then, Mercedes ripped his heart out by ordering him to slow down and let Lewis Hamilton past so he could win, as Mercedes needed Hamilton to win to further increase his championship lead on Sebastian Vettel.

"We had to execute this awful team order," Wolff said in Mercedes' end-of-season review.

"It was Valtteri's race to win and in order to collect right points for Lewis, we switched the order.

"It was something that nobody likes, you could see the faces clearly not happy about the situation and also myself, it was something that goes against all our racing principles and 'may the best guy win'.

"But in that instance we had such a tough fight with Ferrari that there was no way we would leave points on the table.

"When Valtteri moved aside, it broke my heart and I felt for him because I felt really terrible about it. But this sport can be cruel sometimes and this was one of those moments."