Toto Wolff has defended Mercedes’ decision to put 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton on a two-stop strategy after he initially lost out to F1 teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Hamilton later was handed a 105th victory of his F1 career when Russell was disqualified due to an💎 underweight car.

Hamilton was on a tw꧂o-stop strategy - and on fresher tyres - while Russell was the♐ only driver in the top 10 to make just one pit stop.

Track position proved to be critical as Ruꦰssell fended💞 off Hamilton to beat him on-track.

Hamilton appeared toꦬ be frustrated after the race at Spa, saying to Oscar Piastri in the cooldown room that his tyres were completely fine when he came into t𒆙he pits on both occasions.

Speaking to Sky after the race, Wolfꦯf explained why they had no choic🧔e but to pit Hamilton.

“I’d like to have two winners today,” he said. “But w🌌e had to cover Leclerc and Norris because we would’ve been undercut, so that was the call. George had nothing to lose. We were P5.

“The one-stop and the two-stops were showing P5 so we just kept him out. He was very good. Lewis 🥂was very good.

“The strategy played for George, and not🅠 for Lewis. I’d like to h🎐ave two winners today.”

Assess✨ing Russell’s strategy, Wolff conceded tha𒈔t he didn’t think the one-stop strategy “was possible”.

“We didn’t think it was possible,” he added. “But, at a certain stage, we said ‘let’s stay out’ because we would have finished fifth anyway, in b🅺oth scenarios. He made it last.”

Even factoring in Russell's DQ, it’s been a remarkable turnaround for Merce🦩des, having not finished on the podium up until the Can🍸adian Grand Prix.

Since then, Merced🌃es have won three races out of four.

Wolff credited their turnaround on Friday after a disappointing showing inဣ the Friday pra💛ctice sessions.

“On Friday we weren’t competitive, so we expected, in the best case, a ♎podium,” he explained. “Then the team did really work well overn💎ight in Brackley. The engineers at the track took the right decision. The car was good on a one-stop.

“Overnight Friday to Saturday, Shov said ‘we’ve figured out what it is’. Tജheir decision was good.

“We changed the floor. But I don’t think the new floor was bad. On the contrary, we found overnight that we’d tripped on a mechanical issue. We saw that the mechanical issue o෴n the car was better. The new update on the car will come to Zandvoort - that was not the issue on Friday.”