- Mercedes
Hamilton 'stable and mature' emotionally - Wolff
Toto Wolff has downplayed recent speculation about Lewis Hamilton's state of mind by saying the Brit demonstrated his mental strength at Silverstone.
Much of the media focus after qualifying was on Hamilton's decision to abort his final lap, as Nico Rosberg found time on a drying track to go pole. After a costly spin in qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix it was seen as another example of Hamilton making a mistake under pressure, though the Brit then went on to take victory at Silverstone with Rosberg's gearbox failure blowing the title fight wide open once again.
When asked if Rosberg had dealt with the mental side of the title fight better than Hamilton so far, Wolff said: "Not at all. We spend a lot of time with the team and on Saturday night [Hamilton] showed he is very stable and mature in the way he goes about tackling things."
Wolff thinks Hamilton demonstrated this in how he reacted to his first pit stop at Silverstone, telling the team not to worry about a delay but to just "make sure the next one is better".
"For me I am an insider so I see the development, but if you see how the radio goes and how calm everything happens, there is no bad word any more," Wolff added. "There's no negatively excited emotion, everything is very calm - for Nico it is the same, he was facing disaster and retirement but he very calmly went through the settings. The same with Lewis, the way he communicates with his engineers is just 10 out of 10."
Wolff expects Rosberg to draw "energy" from his home crowd in Germany as Hamilton did at Silverstone and thinks it could be crucial to the race result.
"If you are at home there is an extra boost seeing the fans cheer, and even if you can't see them I believe in energy. I believe there was energy behind Lewis at Silverstone. The opposite could happen in Germany - I don't want to sound like a guru but it could be behind Nico!"
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