From the outside, Mercedes' dominance of last weekend's Canadian Grand Prix appeared flawless, but while the German outfit's execution was indeed impeccable, on the pit wall events and circumstances challenged once again the team's diligence and application.
"We needed to keep a fine balance," commented Toto Wolff. "There is a fine line between not interfering in the racing, letting them fight it out, and trying to make sure the car survives. We had to make sure the tyres were on the right side and fuel consumption was not above the limit. It was difficult and there was a lot of conversation going on. But the calls that were made on the pit wall were faultless and the execution was really good so we are not always idiots !"
While it appeared at one point that Nico Rosberg may be able to mount an attack on Lewis Hamilton, in the end, high brake temperatures forced the German to remain at bay.
"Brakes were always an issue," commented Wolff. "We wanted to help manage the brakes so that the two of them could race each other with ten laps to the end. We gave them the call that brakes were looking okay and I think Nico realised that when he was pushing towards the end of the race that he missed the braking once and, with it being so difficult to overtake here, he probably realised it was going to be very hard to overtake unless Lewis made a mistake."
At the end of the day, Toto Wolff believed victory in Montreal was the perfect remedy for a team in search of some balance and steadiness after its Monaco stumble.
"After Monaco, it was difficult to handle sometimes and we were exposed to massive criticism. It looked like all the victories and the world championships were forgotten and suddenly a bunch of idiots were managing the team. Probably that is the case when you have a good car and good drivers. And then we had some ups and downs in the team – Lewis’ race engineer Bono [Peter Bonnington] lost his father a couple of days ago and we needed to support him as much as possible. The result is a satisfying one considering what happened in Monaco and after Monaco."
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