Toto Wolff, Mercedes Formula 1team boss, appreciated the Lewis Hamilton’s efforts to put up the fastest lap on his home ground at British Grand Prix.
Wolff was surprised by the data and commented : “All the data look a little bit silly.”
Hamilton, Mercedes star leading this year’s season to his sixth world championship trophy, surprised everyone with his skills. He decided to go for an extra point by marking the fastest time with worn-out hard tyres.
However, his team mate had the fastest lap when Valtteri Bottas pitted with seven laps to go for a fresh piece of soft tyres. The fresh rubber helped him top the time chart even though he was struck by a battery issue.
Hamilton’s team asked him to pit for new rubber to protect him from chasing parties and to help him earn an extra point. But he refused to come-in so as not to loose his position by making an extra stop.
While he refused to take the risk of pitting in, he pushed himself on hard tyres that he had eroded for 31 laps. He surprised everyone when he topped the fasted time by 0.037 sec on his eroded tyres.
Wolff was astonished by Hamilton’s performance, “First of all, on the fastest lap with the 32-old hard tyres, very surprising.
“And we tend to have a laugh because the engineers have that new presentation in our Sunday morning meeting which basically says ‘you don’t need to go for fastest lap, it doesn’t make any sense anyway’.
“And then he pulls one out like this.
“Which makes all the data look a little bit silly. But it’s just his ability.”
Hamilton revealed after the race that he chose not to pit-in despite his teams request for fresh tyres.
Bottas, who made to second place, pointed out to his car deficiencies – battery problem and a heavier car – during his struggle to mark the fastest lap.
“I tried pretty hard, but I didn’t really have full battery level at that moment,” said Bottas.
“It’s something we actually raised in the meeting, that can be a lot better in the race if we really have some margin to go for the fastest lap, to charge the pack more, to really deploy more.
“So I feel I lost a bit there.
“Also I carried a bit more fuel. I was surprised that with the hard tyre at the end he could do a lap like that.
“So obviously the hard tyre was very, very solid. It was not much.
“I had a bit of a lock-up into the last corner, the last couple of corners, so it was maybe a tenth there. That was enough.”
