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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says that he believes his team has learned how to deal with the pressure of tough sessions by having built what he described as a 'safe environment' - the garage.
These comments come after a difficult qualifying hour for many teams, where the mixed conditions caused havoc for strategists. This was demonstrated when Ferrari decided to go out into Q3 on the intermediate tyres, when the track was dry enough for slicks.
This cost them their first run when they had to come straight back in to change tyres, and when they re-emerged onto the track it had started raining again. Kimi Raikkonen managed to put a lap in to finish 4th, but Vettel could only do enough for 9th.
Mercedes however timed their runs in all sessions perfectly in all sessions, and Wolff had this to say: "There is a lot of pressure, but we are trying to channel it in a positive way. In that session there were a lot of F-words when the session panned out and a lot of discussions and various inputs. But at the end, it is important as a team to get it right more often than we get it wrong."
"But we have had our fair share of criticism. I remember Austria this year where we pitted Lewis out of the lead, so I think we are trying to stay humble and accepting that it's not always easy."
"But what is easy is to comment afterwards and everybody knows the answer afterwards, but in the heat of the moment keeping it together is not trivial."
"It was a very tricky session today to get it right, we were debating Intermediates versus Supersofts for a long and we decided last minute – we had them ready and then we changed them – and then went out and got the timing perfect."
"Our weather frog on the pit wall really got the rain perfect saying it would hit in six minutes, four minutes, two minutes and then it hit. So it was just circumstances really and we decided the right things at the right moment, but there is certainly a little bit of luck factor in there also insofar that I wouldn’t want to be negative about Ferrari’s decision."
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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