Wolff claims strategy high ground after Hamilton "outperformed" Mercedes

Hamilton missed out on pole at Zandvoort by the narrowest of margins

Ewan Gale

Saturday 4 September 2021 18:35

Toto Wolff has put pressure on Max Verstappen and Red Bull's Dutch Grand Prix strategic decision-making with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas lining up second and third.

Verstappen pipped Lewis Hamilton to pole by 0.038secs at his home grand prix at Zandvoort but Perez was eliminated in Q1, leaving his team exposed to a Silver Arrows pincer movement.

The fine line between a one and two-stop strategy has already been demonstrated at the Spanish and French Grands Prix this season, with Mercedes and Red Bull prevailing in a race apiece.

Going into the first Dutch race for 36 years, Wolff has suggested his team has the upper hand.

Asked by Sky Sports F1 if his team held a strategy advantage, Wolff cheekily replied: "They have Gasly [P4 for AlphaTauri]. They have a shadow car.

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"If we are able to have the same pace in the race, it is going to be about survival on a one-stop, Max needs to make a decision.

"Is he going for a one-stop or is he going for a two-stop? We can play both strategies tomorrow and we have seen we have two cars that can go totally different.

"Certainly, we will be pitting one, undercutting and [applying] massive pressure and leaving the other one out and then finishing one and two."

Hamilton's "mega lap" was better than car could manage

Mercedes' run plans through practice had been disrupted with Hamilton grinding to a halt during FP2.

Yet the seven-time champion was almost able to overhaul the gap to Verstappen with his final lap, despite a near half-a-second gap throughout the day's running.

"We need to be satisfied with where we ended up," added Wolff.

"Lewis missed out a lot yesterday on running and in the end he put one lap together and as you see, we are P2 and P3, that is a good starting point.

"I think he outperformed the car. That was a mega lap."