Wolff skips second straight race but Hamilton reveals he's ‘in every meeting’

The Mercedes team principal missed the Japanese Grand Prix to undergo a knee operation, and he is also not in Qatar this weekend. 

Wolff has been advised not to travel during his rehabilitation period.  

It is not the first time that Wolff has skipped F1 races - he was also not on site at last year’s Japanese and Brazilian Grands Prix. 

Despite Wolff not being present in person, Lewis Hamilton said that he is still heavily involved in Mercedes’ weekend. 

"Toto's in every meeting,” the seven-time world champion said. 

"Even though he's not here in person...he's a part of every single meeting. 

“He will dial in to the meeting tomorrow morning, he will be in the meeting in the afternoon, he's on the comms just like the guys back at the factory are for strategy.

"He's still fully 100% fully part of it, he's just not physically there in the country. He speaks in all of those meetings just as he does when he's here.”

Hamilton added: “He's worked incredibly hard to set up this team to be where it is today.

“And he should be able to have weekends off without a problem. He's the boss. Shoot, if I owned the team, I'll definitely take weekends off!

“Not that he's taking the weekend off. But you know what I mean? He has the right to if he wanted to, but it’s just because he's recovering.

“I just tell him we'll be pushing. I just always tell him, don't worry, you set up a great team, we'll try do you proud this weekend."