Mercedes has “thick skin” to deal with Hamilton’s F1 radio frustration
As Hamilton made his way through the field from 11th on the grid, he found himself stuck behind Red Bull’s Sergio Perez in fourth.
Perez opted for fresh intermediates, while Hamilton and Charles Leclerc - who had been running in third - stayed out on the tyres they started the race on, looking to go to the end of the race.
As the tyres started to degrade significantly, Mercedes had concerns Hamilton would not only lose out on a top five finish but potentially be threatened by Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris behind.
After ignoring Mercedes’ call to stop, Hamilton accepted the decision with eight laps to go, settling into fifth - where he finished the race.
Throughout the race, Hamilton vented his frustration to his race engineer, Pete Bonnington.
Wolff was asked about the radio communication between the team and Hamilton, and he feels that they need to work on “the communication to trust each other”.
“It’s very difficult because the communication needs to flow in both directions and that is crucial,” Wolff said. “The pilot is the vital sensor on track that will tell you the grip levels, but the pilot doesn’t see himself relative to the other drivers and performances.
“So that information we need to work on because we’ve had what Lewis called a genius stroke in terms of strategy last time around and I think we just need to work on the communication to trust each other, and in a way be able to describe what we are aiming for.
“We have no problem at all with tough conversations on the radio before you have complete information. Obviously, we wouldn’t speak like this to Lewis, because he’s driving a car at 320 km/h. But that’s all OK, absolutely.
“We are totally aligned, we’ve been in this together eight years. We have thick skin enough to understand that a driver in the car is frustrated about the situation, that he will understand afterwards.”
Hamilton trails Max Verstappen by six points in the drivers' championship with six rounds to go.
