Toto Wolff: “The double-stack was particularly a proud moment”

Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff says the team opted to double-stack its drivers during the Chinese Grand Prix as it did not want to “interfere” with the race order. With Lewis Hamilton leading F1’s 1000th World Championship event from teammate Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes opted to call both of its drivers into the pitlane on Lap37 of the race as the team switched on to a two-stop strategy after Red Bull had triggered a second round of stops a few laps before. “The double-stack was particularly a proud moment because we had everything to lose in P1 and P2 and we were thinking losing the position if we were to pit one of the two earlier and stacking functioned brilliantly,” Wolff told Sky Sports. “It was an interesting situation because it was clear that Valtteri in that situation was under pressure from Sebastian. So if Sebastian would have stopped, he would have undercut Valtteri. “The logical choice is to stop Valtteri first. But if we would have stopped Valtteri, he would have undercut Lewis. So we didn’t want to interfere with the order, so that’s why we decided to stack. We knew that we were just about to have the gap to stack them properly. We gave the commitment to Valtteri that we wouldn’t lose any time, and it was really impressive how the guys did it." Wolff added the team was unsure whether a one-stop or two-stop strategy was the right way to go, but said Red Bull’s decision to stop Max Verstappen ultimately set off the chain reaction among the leading three teams. Lewis Hamilton claimed the victory, while Valtteri Bottas finished in second. Formula 1 returns with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday, April 28.

Source-GPBlog

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