Toto Wolff: Dealing with Lewis Hamilton’s radio messages “not hard at all”

Hamilton had been up at the front with teammate Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel before the pitstop phase in which the World Champion was left out on track a lot longer before being brought in.
 
The 34-year old lost time to Bottas and Vettel, labelling the strategy a “f**k up” over the radio as he tried to close down the German in the last laps.
 
But Wolff believes that him venting his frustrations will only benefit the team in the long run.

“It’s not hard at all, because we completely acknowledge that a driver is eager to win and wants to maximise every opportunity, and if you don’t it’s simply annoying,” Wolff said (quoted by Crash.net).

“I think we completely understand each other’s position. Lewis knows that very well and has total understanding for us in the garage. It’s very difficult to take the right decisions in order to ensure maximum points.

“As long as you embrace the different positions, we have always come back, discussed it and moved forward as an even stronger unit.”

Due to pitting Hamilton five laps later than Vettel and Bottas Mercedes almost opted to keep him on for a one-stop strategy but decided against doing so.