F1 News
Wolff believes Hamilton's British Grand Prix fastest lap makes "data look silly"
- Bobby Vincent
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes Lewis Hamilton recording the fastest lap on his final lap made "all the data look a little bit silly" at Silverstone last weekend.
Hamilton had been on the hard compound tyres for 31 laps when he was so far in front of his team-mate Valtteri Bottas in P2, that he decided to go for the extra point and record the fastest lap of the race.
The five-time world champion was told by his team to come in the pits for new tyres, but he chose to stay out on his 31-lap old tyres and explained later that he didn't want to take a risk of another pit-stop.
"First of all, on the fastest lap with the 32-old hard tyres, very surprising," Wolff explained to Autosport. "And we tend to have a laugh because the engineers have that new presentation in our Sunday morning meeting which basically says 'you don't need to go for the fastest lap, it doesn't make any sense anyway'.
"And then he pulls one out like this. Which makes all the data look a little bit silly. But it's just his ability."