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Ferrari gained advantage from Vettel's role in Pirelli tests - Wolff
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted that he probably made a mistake in not pushing race drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to help out more with Pirelli's 2017 tyre test programme last year.
Jonathan Noble
Edited: Jun 10, 2017, 3:48 PM
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With Ferrari having started this year so strongly – and the characteristics of its SF70H so well suited to the new wider tyres – there have been mounting suspicions about the benefits the Italian team gained from the extensive running that Sebastian Vettel did with a mule car in 2016.
In contrast to Vettel's 2228 km of Pirelli testing last year, Rosberg did 209 km while Hamilton did just 50km.
For Wolff, whose own team is struggling to master the tyres, he is convinced that Ferrari gained a good edge in having someone as established as Vettel throw himself fully into the programme.
"I think it was definitely an advantage for Ferrari that they had Vettel doing it, because with his experience, he was a credible test driver," said Wolff, whose own testing efforts were led by then rookie Pascal Wehrlein.
"If you are driving your car and you are a Pirelli engineer and you have Vettel giving you an input, it is different to Pascal Wehrlein."
Wolff said that the decision to use Wehrlein so much came about being neither Hamilton nor Rosberg wanted to be distracted from what was then a very intense title battle.
"The situation was different with us last year, because Nico and Lewis were in a championship fight, back then, with the current car," added Wolff.
"Both of them said that testing next year's car, with next year's tyres, was something that would at least harm them in their focus of the world championship in 2016. So it was understandable.
"If I could turn back time, I would probably push a bit harder for them to drive the new tyres, but we were in a different situation to the Ferrari drivers."
Wolff comments about the benefits that his team missed are in contrast to what his drivers felt earlier this year, with Hamilton having said that he did not think testing with the mule cars would have helped him at all.
"I'm so glad I didn't do that testing, because the car is so different," said Hamilton earlier this year.
"I did a few laps in the Abu Dhabi test in the 2015 car and it was so much different to this car. It would have been a waste of my time. I'm glad I didn't do it. It made no difference.
"The fact is the [mule] car had so much less downforce and it was lighter than the car we have today, so it wouldn't have put the tyres in the same window.
"The stuff I would have learned then, I would have to undo it and learn again."
Additional reporting by Rene Fagnan
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