Toto Wolff tips his hat to Rosberg

If Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton are the favorite contenders in the title race, the Championship leader respected team instructions by letting his British teammate pass during the Monaco Grand Prix when he was sorely lacking in pace.

This “fair play” on the part of the German marked the executive director of Mercedes Motorsport Toto wolff.

“We couldn't get the tires to work. Ricciardo was leaving and Nico couldn't follow him. We believe that the temperature of the rubbers was to blame. The gap with Ricciardo would have left us no chance of winning if we did not reverse the positions between Nico and Lewis”, explained the Austrian.

“We waited a while, but the situation did not change. We finally decided to give the instruction because Nico was really slow and it ended up being the right decision. If I had a hat like Niki Lauda (the non-executive chairman of Mercedes F1), I would have removed it out of respect for Nico who put the interests of the team first”, added Toto Wolff.

This attitude is all the more surprising as the two drivers had clashed at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix contested two weeks previously on the Catalunya circuit in Barcelona.

“Such instructions are always difficult for a pilot to swallow. We understand that and that's why we waited a few laps hoping that Nico's tires would work... It was almost as if the car of Nico was damaged. The decision was not easy to make but there was clearly a problem with the car”, underlined the team director.

Discover the analysis of the Monaco Grand Prix carried out by our special correspondents in AUTO issue 2065hebdo, available now in digital version on all platforms, and on newsstands from Wednesday.

Jacques-Armand Dupuis