Toto Wolff Cuts Short Interview to Talk to Furious Lewis Hamilton

Published 09/23/2019, 6:54 AM EDT

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It was a horrible day in the office for Mercedes, as neither Lewis Hamilton nor Valtteri Bottas finished on the podium. The summer break really seems to have performed wonders for Ferrari as they have won all three races so far.

However, during the Singapore Grand Prix, the Mercedes team bizarrely, elected to keep Lewis Hamilton out as long as possible. Even telling Bottas to back up and allow Hamilton time to rejoin ahead after the pitstops, made no difference.

Understandably, Lewis Hamilton was furious, and while team boss Toto Wolff was in an interview, he had to cut it short to pacify the defending champion. Hamilton had stormed to the garage, fully intending to ask the team, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?”

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Speaking to the media after the race, the disgruntled Hamilton confessed, “I knew that we should have undercut,” he said. “I kinda knew it this morning in the brief, I was like, ‘Let’s just take the risk’. But they didn’t. We win and we lose together as a team. We all take this on our chins. It’s painful for us, I think, because we could have easily won today, but it just didn’t work out.”

Lewis Hamilton was of the opinion that he could have “easily won” the race if the team took a “risk” with their strategy. The British driver even went as far as to suggest that the in-form Ferrari are currently “hungrier” than the championship leaders.

Hamilton desperately wanted to undercut Charles LeClerc, but Mercedes were not taking the bait. As a result, for the second time this season, neither Mercedes finished on the podium

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Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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