“With the slicks he would have lost a minute”. Toto Wolff he did not like the arrogance of Lewis Hamilton, who accused the team of throwing away points in the final race in Turkey. The reigning champion was in third position after Charles Leclerc’s pit stop behind Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen and would have liked to continue to the checkered flag without stopping in the pits or alternatively re-enter the track with slick tires to avoid the graining problems that put both the Mercedes driver and Charles Leclerc in difficulty in the first laps with fresh tires.
“I have a lot of graining, I told you so”, lo vent via radio of Hamilton who then asked to be left alone without communicating with the wall once he crossed the finish line. The fact that Esteban Ocon finished the race without making the pit stop then corroborated Hamilton’s disappointment, who highlighted Mercedes’ tactical error.
What in Hamilton’s eyes are five points lost (fifth at the finish rather than third) are instead ten points earned for Mercedes, which has decided to introduce a new thermal engine in Turkey by accepting a penalty on the starting grid precisely to remove the risk. to run into a technical knockout during the race which would have coincided with a very heavy zero for the world championship fight. “We have to work on communication in a way that we trust each other describing exactly what are the goals we are pursuing“, said Toto Wolff after the race.
In such a balanced World Cup scoring points every Sunday must be the priority. Pirelli’s Mario Isola had warned the teams during the race that exasperating the intermediate tires could have serious consequences. This is why Mercedes convinced Hamilton to return to the pits by ignoring the seven-time world champion’s thirst for heroism.