Wolff on Lewis start: No blame culture at Mercedes

Toto Wolff insists Mercedes is “never blaming anybody” after he was asked about who was at fault for Lewis Hamilton’s poor start at last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

Lining up on pole position at Monza, the triple world champion endured a sluggish getaway that dropped him all the down to sixth by the end of the first lap. Although Hamilton managed to recover to second, the Briton was never a threat to team-mate Nico Rosberg who cruised to victory.

“What we can see is that it’s a procedural thing so I don’t want to blame anybody,” Wolff told reporters afterwards. “Neither Lewis, nor the engineers, nor the systems.

When it was pointed out to him that surely someone or something must have triggered the setback, the Mercedes motorsport boss replied that pointing fingers in the media would be detrimental to the team’s cohesion.

“We are never blaming anybody. This team, I would never believe anyone is to blame, not the driver, not the engineer, nobody.

“When you start to blame, this is when it goes downhill because people will try to protect their arse and make sure they have a conservative system in place rather than putting the best development on the car.

“In this particular case, I think it’s a combination of many things, partly we changed the rules last year.”

Indeed, Formula One’s starting procedures have been modified and double-clutch systems banned in a bid to make race launches more unpredictable.

This is not the first time that Mercedes and Hamilton struggled off the line this year, with previous occurrences in Australia and Bahrain for the Briton, while Rosberg was also slow out of the gate in Germany.

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