Mercedes: "Clearly in hindsight we made the wrong choice"

Toto Wolff was adamant after the Hungarian Grand Prix that it was 'one hundred percent' not a wrong decision to bring Lewis Hamilton in at the restart to swap the intermediates for slicks. Less than a week later Mike Elliott has to admit that Mercedes should have sent the new world championship leader into the pitlane.

In the debrief, the technical director says: "Clearly in hindsight, we made the wrong choice, but you have to bear in mind those decisions are really, really tricky. We agonised over what tyre to fit at the very start of the race as it turned out the inter was definitely the right choice because it started raining on the lap to the grid", the top man explains.

After the red flag, the situation had to be reconsidered and Mercedes ended up doing it wrong. "We agonised over what tyre to fit after the red flag and clearly all of the cars fitted inters, and on that lap to the grid, even though all the drivers had fitted inters, clearly others decided to change their mind and we should have too."

This made it more difficult for Mercedes

However, the German formation cites that it was trickier for them than for the competition, as you cannot see what the rest are doing. Another problem was that Mercedes had the first pit box in the pitlane. If Hamilton had gone in, he would not have been able to drive away immediately, as fourteen other cars were also coming in.

"The second problem with that or same problem, but another way of looking at it, is if we had tried to force our way out into the pit lane we could have collided with another car and we actually saw that happen in that sequence of pit stops," Elliott concludes his story.