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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton "saved" the team, bringing home the Monaco Grand Prix victory despite tyre problems.
Hamilton switched onto the medium tyres when he made his one and only pit stop, while those around him attached the hard compound to their cars.
Hamilton soon started to have graining issues, and came under serious threat from Max Verstappen behind, who was carrying a five-second time penalty for an unsafe release.
MORE: Hamilton grateful after 'most intense race' | Monaco GP: Hamilton wins despite tyre issues
However, the five-time world champion withstood the challenge to take home Mercedes' sixth victory of the season.
“It was obviously the wrong call,” said Wolff. “We thought the tyre would make it to the end, and it didn’t, but he saved us. His driving saved us. It’s something we really need to analyse.”
"What we calculated is if we were to change lap 15 or 16 the medium would make it to the end with the right management.
"So being in the lead, that was a pretty straight strategy. It didn’t even seem like a huge stretch. We realised 20 laps into the race that on the left-front some graining appeared
"He started to complain about the understeer that resulted from the graining and it was clear that it would get very, very difficult to make it to the end.”
Wolff was told to 'calm down'
Wolff admitted that Mercedes wasn't quite sure if Hamilton was going to hold off Verstappen towards the end, running on "zero per cent rubber".
“We had quite some discussions about the tyres lasting another 40 laps," Wolff said. "I was reminded that it was actually only 20 laps on a normal circuit, so calm down a bit.
“But everybody knew that it was going to be a huge stretch and I believe that probably laps to the end he had zero percent rubber left on the tyre.
"We had massive understeer around the slow speed, go could see around Loews the car wouldn’t turn any more.”
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
RogerF1
Posts: 501
Never in doubt from the 1st corner, he wasn’t the only driver on that compound after the stops and some finished on the same lap