F1 News
Wolff explains Hamilton pit stop: "Nobody had seen those crosses"
Toto Wolff will look back on the Italian Grand Prix with disappointment. The expectation of Mercedes, and actually of the entire paddock, was that Mercedes would score an easy 1-2 in Italy. However, due to Valtteri Bottas' bad start and a heavy penalty for Lewis Hamilton, things went very differently. Hamilton's punishment was due to a miscommunication from the pit wall, explains Wolff after the Grand Prix.
"It was a weird sequence of events that maybe we could have spotted earlier," Wolff said to Autosport. "The decisions that were taken were highly unusual, but they were absolutely within the rules.
"One of the Haas [cars] was parked to the right, near the entry, on the inside of Parabolica, and there was a single yellow. 11 seconds later, a safety car was deployed."
Nobody saw the crosses
The safety car came along with the closure of the pitlane, something Mercedes overlooked.
"Once the safety car was deployed, they put the entry to the pitlane on red, but it wasn't exactly red, it was two yellow crosses on the outside. One of the strategists just shouted into the radio whilst we were entering the pitlane. There was confusion.
"We can't see the signs, and this is just a sequence of events that screwed Lewis's race. Not happy, but you have to take it on the chin."