Mercedes refuse to introduce team orders

During the Spanish Grand Prix, Valterri Bottas played the perfect wingman to his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Due to unplanned circumstances, Bottas ended up in the perfect position to aid his team-mate in his bid to win the Spanish Grand Prix.

Ferrari opted to pit Sebastian Vettel early to avoid any chance of Hamilton pitting first to attempt the under-cut, however Vettel came out of the pits behind Bottas.

Bottas attempted to keep Vettel behind him for as long as possible and cost Vettel around 4 seconds, this was played a crucial part in Hamilton’s race victory.

Hamilton now stands just 6 points behind 2017 Formula One World Championship leader Sebastian Vettel.

But Bottas is 35 points adrift of Hamilton, with Vettel’s Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen a further 14 points behind.

Ferrari are likely to now see Raikkonen support Vettel, but Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff will not make that decision for the German manufacturers at this stage of the season.

‘At the moment he [Hamilton] is quite a large chunk ahead in terms of the Drivers’ Championship, but we are in race number five and there are 14 to go,’ Wolff told Sky Sports.

‘As a team we have never made that call and we have never made it that early, so we are going to continue to work like we do.’

Asked if that decision could be made later in the season he added: ‘Let’s see how it pans out over the next couple of races.’