How Mercedes made a win feel like a defeat
Mercedes insisted it didn't want to take Russian GP victory away from Valtteri Bottas but that it had no choice. Would it have made the same call without a strategy mistake and a pesky Red Bull compromising the race?
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Would you have done it? This was the question Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff asked his many interrogators after his team orders handed Lewis Hamilton Russian Grand Prix victory over rightful winner Valtteri Bottas.
This is the key question – the only question that matters in understanding what happened at Sochi, and one that has a different answer depending on whether you approach it in a cool, calculating, rational manner or an emotional one. Wolff's two explicit decisions – firstly for Bottas to be ordered to let Hamilton into the de facto race lead, secondly not to reverse their positions in the closing laps once the threat to the Mercedes supremacy had been diffused – were exactly what you'd expect from a ruthless, world championship winning machine.
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