Wolff explains the reason why Mercedes had a major pitstop failure
General
Toto Wolff has added explanation to why things went wrong for Mercedes during the Sakhir Grand Prix. The team boss of the German racing team states that the call for a pit stop did not arrive, so they were ready with the wrong tyres.
Eventually, after an investigation by the race management, it appeared that during the call for a pit stop, Russell spoke with his engineers at the pit wall on the onboard radio at the same time. As it turned out, the message from the pit wall had not arrived.
“What happened is that we called out both pit crews to go outside. In such a case, all the mechanics get a radio call and bring out the correct tyres. Only on George's side, the call was not heard at all. The radio was not working, so the wrong men with the wrong tyres were outside when Russell arrived for his stop," Wolff explains to Motorsport.com.
Flat tyre causes the podium to go missing
Once out of the pits on the correct tyres, Russell still had a chance to win the race. However, a flat tyre ended those hopes. "He may have gotten that puncture because he often had to get off the ideal line for overtaking. Or else he could have won? I don't know. Our people at the pit wall had calculated that it would be very close to Sergio, although DRS may have helped us. But I don't know if he would have won," the Austrian top man says, who concludes by saying that Perez has" great driving ".