Wolff will no longer interfere with Mercedes strategy calls

Toto Wolff will keep himself out of Mercedes' strategy calls in the remaining four races of the season in a bid to optimize the team's communication.

Suzuka last weekend was a straightforward affair in terms of strategy thanks to Lewis Hamilton's domination.

But the Russian Grand Prix at Sochi had seen Wolff interact with the Mercedes pitwall and distract chief strategist James Vowles at a critical time, causing the crew to call in Hamilton a lap late which in turn allowed Sebastian Vettel to undercut the Brit.

Hamilton eventually prevailed, helped by a team order to Valtteri Bottas, but Wolff believes the Silver Arrows team's interests will be better served in the future by him refraining from interfering with strategy calls.

• Wolff: Team orders may have caused 'mental setback' for Bottas

The Austrian alluded to a tragic Polish military plane crash in 2010 in Russia to explain why strategy calls should be left to the experts.

"It was two very, very experienced fighter pilots that were flying the plane, and they aborted two of the landing attempts because the fog was too thick and there wasn't an automatic landing system at the airport," Wolff explained.

"When they were thinking about what to do, the head of the air force came into the cockpit and says, 'we are landing.' He overruled the two pilots because he's higher up the hierarchy. And they landed, executing his order, and killed people. They knew better.

"So when our plane flies in qualifying and in the race, James flies the airplane and all I can do is comment and give him feedback and input but ultimately it's his decision what to do.

"He's in command at that moment even though from my ranking I'm higher up. But I will not interfere. It is his call in the end."

In Suzuka, during qualifying, Vowles made clear that he wanted absolute radio silence on the pitwall with the exception of himself and trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.

"He means me, I guess," Wolff admitted.

"There is the race support room back in Brackley that is engaged, and we have all the clever guys there.

"So I'm having my special button with James Allison where we're offloading all the crap and vice versa, just not to offload it onto the guys that are actually flying the plane.

"Unless I am 100% convinced that he's not spotted something, which is when I will give him the input, I will not interfere with the final decision."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter