Formula 1 Mercedes Team's boss Toto Wolff has praised the team and Lewis Hamilton who altered the tyre strategy. Hamilton planned to run on medium tyres in his final lap in the Spanish Grand Prix
Both Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were scheduled to run in for two quick pitstops. Bottas went on his soft compound tyres during the final stop. Hamilton had decided to get another set of mediums at the last leg of the race which was a good strategy according to Wolff.
Hamilton has been known for raising questions regarding the strategies and he himself stated that he studies the tyres carefully before each race. Wolff believes that it is impressive to see the six-time Formula 1 champion making calls while trying to keep the car at its best performance in the race.
Toto Wolff mentioned that, "The call that he made is impressive, because he was adamant to get on to the medium (tyres).
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He added that , "I haven’t spoken to him, but he felt that the medium was the tyre that he wanted to have, so he made that call and what I’m really happy about is the open conversation and transparency that we have between the driver and the team, and that is not something that is obvious.
“There are teams where the driver calls the shots. There are teams where the engineers call the shots, but within our organisation, we’re able to listen to each other and come up with the best decision.
“If the driver wants a tyre, that is not really compromising his race because he had the gap anyway, then he shall get the tyre.”
Wolff told that originally they had planned to put Hamilton on Soft tyres, he told that- "When we looked at the first stint, the soft tyre performed really well. We could extend the stint.
"The grip was there and it was the logical choice to go on the soft for the last remaining 15-20 laps. Nothing really indicated that that tyre wouldn’t perform.
“So that was not a mistake from the team, because on the contrary, the soft is the quickest tyre."
Wolff admitted that they were focusing on managing the tyres in the opening stint- "The pace was well managed from all three cars at the beginning because we didn’t know how the tyres would behave and how long we needed to go.
“So there wasn’t really any push lap at the beginning and we were able to extend the first stint on the soft.
“But knowing probably that a one-stop would be a big stretch and in that respect probably if they would have pushed they would have gone two or three seconds faster.”
