“We’re going to fight” – Mercedes’ Toto Wolff

Toto Wolff Team Principal of the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team was full of fighting spirit, after Lewis Hamilton fought to victory at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix despite a weekend full of setbacks.

Mercedes extended their Constructors’ championship lead over Red Bull Racing, after a 1-3 for Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace Circuit. Hamilton who started tenth after taking his five-place grid penalty for taking a new engine part, showed the same skill he demonstrated in the sprint race on Saturday, after recovering from twentieth to fifth after being disqualified from qualifying.

Red Bull had no answer to Hamilton’s speed, although Max Verstappen gave it his best go, forcing Hamilton off the circuit at the British drivers first attempt of taking the lead. The world champion eventually made his way past the Dutchman on his way to victory, meaning that he closed the gap to Verstappen to just fourteen points with three races remaining.

Bottas had a somewhat lonely race, the Finnish driver made the most of a VSC to move ahead of Sergio Pérez, the Mexican pitted just before the VSC was released, to clear debris off the circuit.

Toto Wolff was unbelievably proud of his team after they took the fight to Red Bull, some may say that the momentum is now in the Silver Arrows corner.

“What a weekend from this team. We started the weekend on the backfoot with our self-inflicted engine penalty, we got disqualified yesterday which was harsh, and then today in the race, things went against us too. This team has always been together, but these decisions have brought us so close. It felt like everything was against us and I think that’s what Lewis has felt all his life and we now feel it together as a team and we’re going to fight – that is the emotion we’re feeling in the garage at the moment.
 
“Yesterday Lewis produced one of the best drives we have ever seen. I don’t know how many overtakes there were across the weekend but Lewis was left, right, and over them. And today, his driving was immaculate. Max forced him off the road at Turn 4 and Lewis was very clever to avoid contact. It was great to see these amazing drivers but not giving a 5 second penalty? Come on!
 
“Valtteri banked crucial points for the team today and his driving was top-class all weekend, a very strong podium for him today to follow his victory in the Sprint yesterday. This season keeps delivering and you can see how quickly the tides change – last weekend we went away beaten up in Mexico, this week we had the faster package. Red Bull could be very strong in Qatar next week and that is to be expected. May the stronger one win. Last weekend it was them, this weekend it was us – we’ll fight to the end.”