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Wolff defends Mercedes strategy

12:01, 09 Jul 2018

byBobby Vincent

Toto Wolff defends Mercedes' driving at Silverstone despite Lewis Hamilton's first-lap crash.

Wolff has been quoted in an interview slating Ferrari's tactics as Kimi Raikkonen span Hamilton out.

However many people believe that if Hamilton's start had have been better, then Raikkonen wouldn't have had the opportunity to collide with the Mercedes driver.

This is just a week after the Austrain Grand Prix, where Mercedes clearly got their strategy wrong there.

Marcus Ericsson's crash meant the safety car was out on track and the Silver Arrows elected to leave both drivers out on track.

This meant that Valtteri Bottas could take the lead over Sebastian Vettel and ensuring Hamilton could overtake Raikkonen and Max Verstappen.

Bottas felt the effect of this late on, as his tyres deteriorated - Vettel, Raikkonen and Verstappen all overtook him.

"I think it was absolutely the right thing to do," said Wolff.

"There were 15 or 16 laps until the end with mediums that would last.

"Gaining track position was the interesting one for us and that triggered our decision.

"I think that both strategies are valid.

"But doing the opposite was the choice we went for and at the end it brought us a P2 and P4 and I think considering how the race started, we need to accept the result as an acceptable outcome with real damage limitation.

"In hindsight, I think the safety car went against him.

"Sebastian was managing the tyres already again, like on the first set of the softs, you could see he was very fast at the beginning but then the tyre fell away."