“He has such a mental strength," team boss says; Mercedes deny they will do world champion any "favours" to make up for mistaken pit call
Tuesday 26 May 2015 17:25, UK
Toto Wolff has no doubts that Lewis Hamilton will recover from his Monaco GP disappointment at the weekend and also denied that Mercedes might do him any “favours” at coming races.
After dominating the majority of Sunday’s race, the world champion eventually finished third behind Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel after a late call to the pits.
With the safety car out, Mercedes over-estimated Hamilton’s lead over Rosberg and Vettel – earlier as high as 25s - before bringing him in.
Having moments earlier seemed destined for a second win in the Principality, Hamilton instead rejoined behind his main rivals and cut a disconsolate figure afterwards.
“He has such a mental strength,” Wolff said. “He’s on a roll and it must be very sore to lose that one because it was his to win. I have no doubt that he will recover as quickly as he always did.”
On Tuesday, Mercedes held their usual post-race engineering debrief in order to try and fully understand what happened.
“The simple answer is we got the maths wrong,” Wolff said on Sunday. He also explained that Mercedes had pitted Hamilton because they were concerned about the threat Vettel might pose in the closing laps, assuming Ferrari had also put fresh tyres on his car.
Hamilton was not present, although he did play a part in the decision after becoming concerned that the tyres he was using had lost their performance.
Instead, Hamilton tweeted a photo of himself doing pullups on a yacht. “See you in Montreal,” it said, complete with the hashtag #Stronger.
“We win and we lose together and that one goes on the team,” Wolff said. “I apologised. That’s probably the only thing we can do.
“He’s a great driver and I’m sure he will understand that sometimes we make errors.”
With Rosberg now 10 points behind after completing a hat-trick of wins at Monaco, Wolff also denied the suggestion that Mercedes might do Hamilton “favours”.
“Like speak to Sebastian?” Wolff responded. “No.”
He added: “Believe me, there is no such thing as favouritism in this team, for whatever reason.”
Don’t miss the F1 Midweek Report for analysis and reaction to the Monaco GP. Natalie Pinkham is joined by F1 journalist Will Buxton and Lotus reserve driver Jolyon Palmer on Wednesday at 8:30pm on Sky Sports F1.
