Lewis Hamilton told by Toto Wolff communication must improve after botched strategy at Turkish Grand Prix

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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has said his team will work with Lewis Hamilton to improve how they communicate after their disagreement over race strategy at the Turkish Grand Prix.

Hamilton lost two places after Mercedes called him into the pits to change his tyres in the closing stages of the races, with the seven-time world champion questioning the call.

The 36-year-old wanted to stay out on the tyres he started the race on but Mercedes believed they wouldn’t last the 58 laps, which led to a furious exchange from Hamilton on the team radio.

Wolff stood by his team’s decision, insisting afterwards that Hamilton wouldn’t have made it to the end of the race on his original tyres, but he admitted they could have handled the discussion differently.

“I think we just really need to work on the communication to trust each other and in a way be able to describe what we are aiming for,” Wolff said.

“We have no problem at all with tough conversations on the radio before you have complete information and obviously, we wouldn’t speak like this to Lewis because he is driving the car at 320 [kilometres per hour].

“But that is all okay, so absolutely we are totally aligned. We have been together for eight years and we have thick skin enough to understand that a driver in the car is just frustrated about a situation but he will understand afterwards.”

The result left Hamilton six points behind Max Verstappen with six races of the season remaining, as Hamilton’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas won his first race of the season in Istanbul.