Wolff defends Mercedes strategy for Hamilton

Toto Wolff has defended Mercedes' strategy with Lewis Hamilton after Nico Rosberg's victory in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Hamilton had closed a gap of over six seconds to just 1.3s ahead of the second round of pit stops, with Rosberg the first to stop. Hamilton then ran ten laps longer than his team-mate before pitting, leaving him with a gap of over 12 seconds in the closing laps which he could not make up.

Asked about the strategy decisions after Hamilton himself had questioned the call from inside the car, team boss Wolff said the team had tried to give more freedom.

"I think you all criticised us that we were too much remote controlling last time around and this time there were two strategies that could have worked," Wolff said. "We left it to him, his race engineer and his side of the garage as to which strategy they would rather go for."

Hamilton pit with 15 laps remaining but fitted soft tyres once again despite Sebastian Vettel switching to supersofts a lap earlier. Wolff explained Mercedes doubted the softer tyre would have gone to the end of the race.

"We were afraid or worried that supersoft wouldn’t work until the end. We saw some massive drop off and we saw that in the first stint it only lasted nine or so laps on full fuel and at the end it would have been 15 laps to go and it could have fallen off the cliff. As a result it could have been worse."

And Wolff says it was still worth Mercedes giving Hamilton the opportunity to try something different against his team-mate.

"It was an offset strategy and it was worth a consideration – go a bit longer and see how that pans out. If he had made that tyre last then he could have gone for the option and that would have been a real goal for him to win the race. The tyre didn’t last and then he went into the third best option and obviously that was not optimum."

REPORT: Rosberg takes third win in a row to end season

AS IT HAPPENED: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix