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Mercedes will not interfere in Hamilton race tactics

Toto Wolff says Mercedes will not interfere with Lewis Hamilton’s race tactics in today’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix if he chooses to back up team-mate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton is 12 points behind Rosberg, meaning he needs his team-mate to finish off the podium to have any chance of winning the world championship. Hamilton will start from pole position in an all-Mercedes front row, and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has suggested the triple world champion’s only option is to try and back Rosberg into the chasing pack.

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When asked if he would support Hamilton taking such an approach, Wolff replied: “I’ve heard the comments before.

“We can’t really interfere in the final race, we let them race until now. They both know what we deem as being sportsmanlike. There is a lot at stake tomorrow, it is a drivers’ world championship to be won or lost. I think we have to cover all possibilities, as long as we are not overstepping the mark in what we consider to be unsportsmanlike driving we are fine. I think we need to let them [race].”

And Wolff says it is not easy for Mercedes to ensure it gets the right balance between helping the drivers achieve the best possible result and not influencing which one wins.

“It is a difficult situation for all of us in the team. You might say we are in a very privileged position that whoever wins this weekend is going to be a Mercedes driver but the truth is we have kept neutral over these last three years, [the race] is going to be difficult, it has been already, to give them support when they need it, not interfere too much or over-manage but just let them fight it out on track.

“Give them a car that has pace, which we have seen [in qualifying] we were able to achieve, reliable car and a strategy that works for both. That is another tricky area with the Red Bull’s on an offset strategy and the Ferrari pace. So the main objective is to interfere the least in the F1 driver world championship and let the drivers fight it out on track.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.