Mercedes admit wrong decisions made in Abu Dhabi - Team orders row overshadows title fight
Published by Christine
The team should be celebrating the culmination of another dominant season of Formula One, but instead Mercedes are having to respond to more criticism of their drivers and their behaviour. Lewis Hamilton attempted to back up the field in the closing stages of the Abu Dhabi race, hoping to put his teammate under pressure and perhaps have another car overtake Rosberg and drop him out of contention.
The pit wall were on the radio asking him to speed up, which Hamilton ignored, but in the end his tricks didn’t pay off. Afterwards he said: “I don’t know why they didn’t just let us race. There was never a moment where I felt I would lose the race. It’s a shame.”
Team boss Toto Wolff admitted: “In the heat of the moment, sometimes when you make decisions you get them wrong… How the race panned out, we should have communicated differently and in hindsight let them race in the way they deemed to be appropriate.”
There was some speculation that Hamilton would face sanctions or trouble at the team for ignoring team orders, but with Rosberg’s retirement throwing a spanner in the works, the team now have bigger things to worry about.
