F1 News
Wolff apologises to 'greatest ever driver' Hamilton after Q1 debacle
Toto Wolff has apologised to Lewis Hamilton after an 'inexcusable' qualifying operation from his Mercedes team. It's Hamilton's last weekend as a Mercedes driver after spending 12 seasons with the team, and Toto Wolff has fumed at his team for the way that the session was handled. On behalf of Mercedes, he apologised to 'the most valuable driver in F1' publically.
Wolff summarises "idiotic mistake":
“I just need to apologise to Lewis. Also, to everyone in the team that worked so hard in making it a great end for him. He was the quicker guy with the setup we chose on the car to experiment for next year. We totally let him down. Idiotic mistake not to go earlier. Inexcusable, inexcusable. I’ve rarely been so down about what has happened. Maybe it summarises the last races we’ve had with him, but this is the worst part of it because it was just idiotic,” Wolff began on Sky Sports.
Lewis Hamilton's qualifying ended early after a bollard dislodged by Kevin Magnussen got stuck underneath his car. Mercedes sent Hamilton out onto the circuit late, but he managed to get to the line with just a few seconds to spare, after a good start to the weekend, including a third place in the final free practice session, Hamilton and Mercedes would've been expecting more as they hoped for a now unlikely fairytale ending.
“I think we were lucky that both of them wrestled their way through the other traffic. Maybe without the bollard, it would have worked. You don’t risk so much in a Q1 where we easily had the pace to make it out there. Our most valuable racing driver ever, the most valuable greatest driver of this sport, gets out in Q1 because we make a mistake. It doesn’t ruin the legacy we had with him, but I can only say sorry to him,” the Austrian concluded.
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