Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff are at odds over the reason behind Mercedes’ bizarre failure at the United States Grand Prix.
Hamilton saw team-mate George Russell crash out during qualifying before experiencing a strange loss of control on lap three of the race, spinning onto the gravel and out of the race.
The Mercedes star believes recent upgrades to his car might have caused the problem.
Hamilton was still at a loss to describe what happened but theorised: “In P1 I had the same thing. I had the spin in Turn Three, which is so rare. I have never spun in Turn Three in all the years I’ve been here.
“I was just saying about George obviously having the same problem yesterday, he has gone back to the old-spec car and is looking good out there, so maybe there is something with the new upgrade.”
He later added: “I wasn’t even pushing at that point. I was literally just trying to get going and bringing the tyres up to temperature. The car started bouncing, the left front started bouncing and the rear end just came round. It was the same as George yesterday.”
Wolff clearly disagreed with that theory, though.
The Austrian said: “I don’t think we have a fundamental issue on the upgrade, very much. My thinking is it’s more interaction on aero and on mechanical stuff. Therefore we’re going to continue with the upgrade.
“It makes no sense to not because there’s a lot of lap time you leave on the table. However, on the other side, you need to be very open-minded. George drove the July upgrade [on Sunday] because we didn’t have the [new] floor, and that seemed pretty competitive.”
