Toto Wolff on Mercedes' view of the crash and where they go next
Thursday 7 November 2019 13:05, UK
Mercedes were chasing a record-equalling 11th consecutive win when their two cars lined up on the front row of the grid for the Spanish GP – but within four corners of the lights going out their cars were out of the race in a plume of dust.
Team boss Toto Wolff spoke to reporters after the race to explain the crash, how Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg reacted, and where Mercedes go from here…
How the crash unfolded…
Toto Wolff: "Coming out of [turn] three, Lewis had more speed, Nico de-rated. Nico closed up the inside with what looked to be a clean manoeuvre. Lewis chose to go that side, ended up on the grass, and lost the car. And that was it.
"A very unfortunate racing incident triggered by various circumstances, and really difficult to judge.
"Nico was in the wrong setting and that's why he lost power out of three. He didn't have as much [hybrid] energy as Lewis had.
"It explains why everything went so quickly. There was such a discrepancy in speed and they needed to make a decision in a split second, and that ended up with Lewis hitting Nico."
What Mercedes made of it…
TW: "There are quite a few people in the team with racing experience - and an opinion.
"The opinion differed between all of us. What I take home is that it was an incident that could have been avoided from both sides. It's so difficult to attribute percentages of blame."
Whether Lewis should have tried to overtake…
TW: "I think the manoeuvre was fair enough to attempt that. The result was unfortunate, but making the manoeuvre and seeing the light [on Rosberg's car] blinking and just going for it was what he should have done.
"And equally you can't blame Nico for closing the door. But the difference of speed just triggered the incident in the end."
What he said to Lewis and Nico…
TW: "What I said to the two of them is, fundamentally they are sitting in those cars, they are responsible for bringing those cars home, and they failed to do that. Full stop. I don't want to go any further.
"We have let Lewis down in the last couple of races and we have apologised for that, and it's a pretty normal culture we are having within the team. That's how it is and we move on."
Whether further punishment is needed…
TW: "It was definitely a lesson enough. It's painful for them to see we have lost what could have been a great result."
What happens next…
TW: "Both were pretty upset about the situation and that the team has been let down.
"But what will matter more is how we come out of the incident as a team. We have had really great spirit in the team in the last couple of races, so many ups and downs, and never threw the toys out of the pram and that is another challenge for us to demonstrate we can move on from difficult circumstances."
And whether team-mate relations will worsen…
TW: "They know what's important for us, and we saw that in our discussions afterwards.
"You can't expect to just be easy about it, each of them is going to have an opinion - this is how racing drivers' function and we can't expect them to react any differently.
"But I am 100 per cent sure it's not going to influence in a negative way their relationship going forward."
