Revealed: What Toto Wolff said to Lewis Hamilton straight after ‘horror’ Azerbaijan GP

Sympathising with Lewis Hamilton over the radio about his “horror” Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Toto Wolff was met with silence from his Mercedes driver.

Qualifying seventh around the street of Baku where he was almost a second down on pole-sitter Charles Leclerc, Mercedes found a component on Hamilton’s W15 had failed.

Toto Wolff tried to commiserate with Lewis Hamilton

That resulted in the team making set-up and suspension changes, which broke parc ferme rules, while also opting for a full power unit change with Hamilton having to start the 51-lap Grand Prix from the pit lane.

Despite all that, the Briton struggled to make up positions and, stuck behind the Haas of Oliver Bearman, was running outside of the points before Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez crashed on the penultimate lap as they fought over third place.

That elevated Hamilton to P9, but in a race in which he was a full minute down on his podium-finishing team-mate George Russell, he wasn’t open to commiserations.

Wolff tried his best.

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“Lewis, good to make it to the end, that was a horror race,” he told his driver on his in-lap back to the pits. “I can so relate to it, we can all relate to it. At least we have taken the penalty now. Let’s move forward, look forward.”

His words were met with silence.

Hamilton’s race engineer Pete Bonnington then came on the radio to say “well done” and that he understands Hamilton’s “frustration” but Hamilton’s only reply was to report Nico Hulkenberg had passed him under Virtual Safety Car conditions.

Hamilton and Wolff seem to be at odds about the decision to change his power unit, the Briton telling the media: “It was the team’s decision.”

While he didn’t reply when asked if he was happy with it, he later added that Mercedes told him it was the “best place, they said at least, to make the change”.

Wolff explained the team’s decision, saying: “We knew that it was going to be a race of misery because it’s so difficult to overtake in Baku. And that’s what it was.

“The moment you come closer, you overheat the tyres and then you go backwards and I think this is what happened to him. But lots to learn.”

“There’s two different philosophies, and we discussed it at length. One, you just swallow the pill here, because starting from P7, we don’t know where that would have gone, and then doing it in Austin. But we feel that Austin is an opportunity, and so that was the decision. Right or wrong? I don’t know, it was a close call.”

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