It is time for the US Grand Prix in Austin Texas and Formula One title rivals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg is under huge pressure as they enter the final straight. Though both the champions are not revealing and their body language is absolutely firm and confident but it reflects somewhere or the other, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said on Friday.
Toto Wolff told reporters at the U.S Grand Prix “I think that generally, all of us, we underestimate the pressure that is on these guys.”
In a response to a question about triple world champion Hamilton’s behavior towards media in Japan two weeks ago the Austrian said: “It’s a couple of races towards the end of the season, there is all to win and all to lose.”
Hamilton has already been criticized at the Suzuka circuit for fiddling around with his mobile phone during a news conference and using the Snapchat app to alter pictures of fellow drivers. Above it, he also walked out of a later media briefing. That race in Japan came only after days after Hamilton retired with an engine failure in the closing stages of the Malaysian Grand Prix while leading the race.
At this point, Hamilton is 33 points behind Germany’s Rosberg with just four races remaining in this seasons which mean that even if he takes four successive victories that also it may not be enough to win the title.
Wolff said: “I guess that after Malaysia, where he (Hamilton) was in the lead, 25 points to take, the engine blew up. That was a very difficult situation for him to cope with,”
“As cool as someone might seem to be outside, inside it kind of eats you up and maybe that’s why the weekend in Suzuka was a bit difficult for him emotionally.
“But he knows exactly that there’s a job to be done in the car and there’s a job to be done outside the car.”
Hamilton again appeared in the official Thursday news conference and was polite and looked controlled, courteous and answered all the questions addressed to him. Rosberg too appeared impressively calm and is not thinking much about the title but taking each race one at a time.
Wolff flew back from Japan to Britain with Hamilton and they attended celebrations at the factories to celebrate the team’s third successive constructors title, said they had conversations with him about what had happened. Wolff said: “It was generally about how things can be improved. It was not a headmaster kind of discussion.”