The investigation into Mercedes ‘underperformance in Monaco, in which Lewis Hamilton was terribly off the pace and the pit crew couldn’t remove a wheel from Valtteri Bottas’ W12, was long and deep, leading Wolff to realize that he had to keep doing it in his feelings.
Fast forward two weeks and those emotions could no longer be held back as he described what had just become “painful” on the streets of Baku and that he and Hamilton felt “destroyed” by a simple mistake by the seven-time champion him at least 18 points.
Just 40 minutes before that mistake, a potential 15-point deficit on Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who drove to consecutive victories for the first time in his F1 career, was dramatically equalized due to a punctured rear left tire and spat him poisonously into a concrete wall.
Hamilton immediately had the opportunity to leave the “Land of Fire” with a likely 14 point lead if he could hold onto second place on the restart that followed a long red flag.
Hamilton had previously made it clear on team radio that he would take no chances if he took the first corner with new leader Sergio Perez when he declared the season a “marathon, not a sprint,” which suggests that he thought of the long game rather than instant glory in the Azerbaijani capital.
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