Hi, I’m Toto Wolff,
the Team Principal of the
Mercedes Petronas Formula One Team.
Normally the Pure Pit Wall is
done by the really intelligent engineers.
But, this time you guys, the fans,
have requested for me to do it.
So, let’s do it. Let’s lower the
standard for the last race in Abu Dhabi.
That’s a very good question.
Normally during the season you
would say let’s save some engine mileage
and not go all the way to the end and
also benefit from a tyre choice,
but this time, it was the last race of
the season and we wanted to give
Valtteri a shot for pole position.
He has performed really well most
recently and also in terms of tyre choices,
there were not a lot of options open
after using the Medium anyway in Q2
so we thought, out and out racer Valtteri,
let’s go for pole position and see
what he can achieve.
The beginning of the race for
the ones that missed it, there
were 18 laps where nobody
actually had some DRS. It was
some kind of technical glitch.
I think probably somebody in
Race Control stumbled over a
cable and it wasn’t properly plugged
in the wall. But, yeah, it was
not great for Valtteri because
he couldn’t progress through the
field like we would have imagined
and maybe he could have had a
shot for P3 at the end.
He was very close to Charles, but it is
what it is, P4 on the road which is really
strong considering that he came from last.
It was a spectacular pit stop,
2.11 so one of the fastest we did
this season and I stood there
watching the guys because I am
always blown away by the
consistency of these stops.
Particularly for us, we are not aiming
to beat any pit stop records because
there ain’t no points for pit stop records,
but about delivering consistent stops.
I think generally when you are
out in front and you are able to
manage the pace, it gives you a
great advantage. Following another
car is what really makes the tyres suffer.
But Lewis controlled the race from the
get-go and therefore he was able to
extract such an amazing time at the
end on the Hard tyre. We have seen a
similar performance in Silverstone,
so in a way he’s able to really feel the
grip and maintain the grip until when the
car is much lighter, and he can score
that extra point.
That’s such a stupid question that
can only come from our own
social media department.
So yes, for everybody who wants to know,
they are being stress-tested and
next time we use the guy who invented
the question for stress testing.
Yeah, I don’t know what you can
do with the next 100 days.
I mean, there’s Christmas in between
and New Year, so there’s a good reason
for having a drink or night out and
then for a few days to recover.
For us, there is not a lot of time left,
because the factory is on a
12-month shift basically.
When we are not racing,
we are building up the cars
and putting them together and
trying to catch up with all the
regular office stuff.
So, not a lot of partying going
on for us but I hope you at least
can enjoy the time over the festive period.
Thank you for asking all the questions
on Pure Pit Wall, it was nice stepping
into the engineer’s shoes, and I liked
almost all of the questions, the one
where it was a bit stupid but that was OK.
And see you around next year on Pure Pit Wall.
