Canadian Grand Prix: Mercedes no longer idiots, says Wolff

Team recovers from Monaco debacle with one-two finish

MONTREAL: Lewis Hamilton celebrated by chatting, posing for photos and signing autographs with the fans, Nico Rosberg kept his dignity and his cool and Mercedes breathed a sigh of relief.

After the debacle of their Monaco Grand Prix pit-stop fiasco, the champion team were back on form after defending champion Hamilton led Rosberg home in a perfect one-two finish to Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.

“We are not idiots any more, are we?” said team chief Toto Wolff. Nobody can argue with that.

It was Mercedes’ fourth one-two of the season and it was Hamilton’s fourth win this year — ample proof, if needed, that the two-time champion and his men remain hot favourites for the drivers’ and constructors’ titles.

After the 37th win of his career, Hamilton leads the 29-year-old German Rosberg by 17 points in the title race with much-improved Ferrari’s revitalised four-time champion German Sebastian Vettel third, 43 points adrift of the 30-year-old Briton.

“The calls we made on the pitwall today were faultless, the execution was really good, so we’re not always idiots” said Wolff. “It’s very rare because today was very tight. If you have a weekend like Monaco, it’s difficult to digest it and come out of it in a good way. So the team needed that result today.”

Fellow team boss Niki lauda was also happy with the way things panned out. “I can’t complain of anything because Lewis did a great job, Nico the same and everybody else was more or less nowhere. It was a perfect weekend. The shock of Monaco is over.”

Looking ahead, Wolff warned his team to expect a much stronger challenge from Vettel, who finished fifth Sunday behind Finns Valtteri Bottas of Williams and his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. “Psychologically, I guess it’s good that when a competitor expects more performance, you are able to stay on top,” said Wolff. 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th,  2015.

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