Haas driver Esteban Gutierrez has called Lewis Hamilton “disrespectful” following an incident during yesterday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
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Daniel Ricciardo won the third place after a well-defended race from Sebastian Vettel.
Rosberg did not, and will head to his home race behind Hamilton in the championship.
While Rosberg started at the pole, the race was pretty much decided at turn one when Hamilton passed the German driver and went on to lead the race for the remainder of the 69 laps.
Hamilton touched another landmark en route to his win in Budapest: he overtook Michael Schumacher’s previous record of four wins on the circuit. “I got a good start”.
An otherwise uneventful race was kept interesting by the feisty battle between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who finished fifth and sixth respectively.
Asked if he thought Hamilton was trying to back up title rival and teammate Rosberg, Wolff said: “I’m sure he didn’t want to back him up”.
Mercedes swapped a number of mechanics from his championship-winning side of the garage to that of Rosberg’s ahead of the new campaign, and Hamilton also faces starting at least one of the remaining 10 races from the back of the grid under the sport’s complex engine rules.
“As I’ve said all the time I’m not counting points, and I also fully expected him to come back, and I didn’t expect to be 48 points ahead all the time”. “I lost the win there”.
“Honestly it’s not massive”, said Hamilton as he reflected on his six-point lead ahead of the final race before the summer break. “The whole weekend we were discussing their need to be very cautious on the tyres”, said Wolff in his post-race press conference.
“The fact he didn’t get penalised means we have to be careful because the message we are sending to drivers here is it’s now possible for you to lose only one tenth of a second in the double-waved yellow flag section, which is one of the most unsafe scenarios”. I was just managing that gap of about two seconds. “I love the track”.
Mercedes’ request to Hamilton to increase his pace included a warning that the team might have to let Rosberg pit first if he didn’t up his speed.
Hamilton’s lead in the championship is now six points. It’s just important to know.
This left Rosberg only seven-tenths behind, but Hamilton responded with a fastest lap to re-open the gap to 1.1 seconds and soon extended it to 2.9 seconds.
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McLaren-Honda had a mixed result as Jenson Button was forced to retire from the Hungarian GP following a mechanical failure. Red Bull won them both.
