Toto Wolff has defended Mercedes’ strategy gamble at the Singapore Grand Prix, declaring the team would repeat it “every day of the week”.
Running in second and fourth, Mercedes pit George Russell and Lewis Hamilton under the Virtual Safety Car for new mediums.
At the time, Russell couldn’t pass Carlos Sainz in front, who was deliberately backing off to stop Mercedes from reverting to a two-stop strategy.
Mercedes’ call to pit their drivers under the VSC looked like it was going to be a masterstroke as Russell and Hamilton reeled the top three in.
Russell’s charge was halted by Sainz’s clever tactic to give Norris DRS – ensuring the Mercedes drivers couldn’t get past.
“We tried to win and we didn’t,” Wolff said after the race. “The positives are that I love the call from driver and strategy team to say, ‘We’re going for it’.
“Worst case was second and fifth. Best case, we win or first and second. And our plan showed that at times.
“I think it was the absolute right call, we would have finished P2, P5 – maybe P2, P4, and we wanted to win the race.
“So, we took the risk and I would every day of the week do it again.”
Even though Mercedes weren’t able to win, Wolff is taking plenty of positives from the weekend.
“Overall, I’m happy about the performance,” he added. “I’m happy about how the car was all weekend, and I think we gave it our best shot.
“I think this is the positive… we’ve been really strong here, we could have won the race.
“We could have finished first and second on merit and that is what we need to take from here and clearly will energise us even more that, on this particular track, we were strong.
“Not everything is wrong. But then you see on the planner, P1 and P2 popping up at times and you think about ‘Could have been an unbelievable day’ and it’s not.
“But I’d rather then fall back on the positives of this weekend and go back home and say ‘that was a good one’.”
Keyword: Toto Wolff stands by Mercedes' strategy gamble: ‘Every day of the week I’d do it again’