Following Q2 of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, a Lewis Hamilton was seen having an intense chat with Wolff at the back of the team’s garage. Some had suggested that they were arguing over the way Mercedes had approached qualifying, and the alleged argument was the first evidence of possible tension between them over the current performance of their car.
The team boss, however, has dismissed claims that the conversation was more than a minor annoyance on the part of the Briton due to his tire problems.
According to Motorsport.com , Wolff assured that “it is quite curious how it has been interpreted”.
“Lewis [Hamilton] and I share the frustration of not being able to extract performance on the first lap and how annoying this is. But it was basically the same point of view.”
“There is no fight, and there is no blame to be shared, or anything like that. There is pressure, but I would say that it is necessary to do things well. Nobody in the team is close to enjoying what happens to Mercedes in this moment,” he explained.
Although Hamilton is clearly not thrilled with Mercedes’ current performance, Wolff says all he had seen was the seven-time world champion focused solely on driving the team forward.
“We all have our good moments and our bad moments,” said the Austrian. “We have the optimism and the pessimism but, as it is, we just came out of the meeting and it was really to say: ‘what are the avenues that we need to embark on immediately?'”
“So I don’t see any difference in the determination and passion to get this thing resolved, and to get back to winning races and fighting for championships. That’s exactly the discussion we just had 20 minutes ago,” he said.
However, despite the team remaining optimistic that it can unlock the potential it believes is in the W13, Wolff admitted thoughts of the championship were now on the back burner.
“We are four races in and today will probably mark the lowest point,” he said. “It is obvious that we are not close to the fight for the lead. And it would be very unrealistic to pretend to have a place among the first to fight for the championship,” the Mercedes boss clinched.
