Mercedes had to tell its drivers to manage both brakes and fuel during the Canadian Grand Prix in order to allow them to go on full attack for the final ten laps of the race.
Lewis Hamilton beat team-mate Nico Rosberg to victory after 70 laps of the two cars running one-two at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Rosberg was told to manage his brakes while Hamilton was told to save fuel, but Wolff said the Mercedes pit wall was managing the race to allow a head-to-head battle in the final 10 laps. Rosberg got the gap down to 1.2s with seven laps remaining, but then faded away when it became apparent overtaking would be difficult.
"Brakes were always an issue," Wolff said. "We wanted to help to manage the brakes so that the two of them could race each other with ten laps to the end. We gave them the call that brakes were looking okay, but I think Nico realised that when he was pushing towards the end of the race that he missed the braking once and, with it being so difficult to overtake here, he probably realised it was going to be very hard to overtake unless Lewis made a mistake."
Wolff said Mercedes was not trying to intervene in the battle but instead was ensuring both cars made the chequered flag.
"It is always a balance. There is a fine line between not interfering in the racing, letting them fight it out, and trying to make sure the car survives. At one stage we had more than 30 seconds gap to Bottas and high brake temperatures and we were a bit marginal on fuel, so we discussed how to keep all those key parameters under control. It was a tense situation, but I wouldn't say it wasn't more tense than at other races."
Asked whether Hamilton's fuel saving or Rosberg's brake issues was a bigger issue, Wolff added: "Nico's brakes were in danger after the first third of the race at very high temperatures. It was a very clear message we passed on to look after those brakes. I would say that in that particular race the brakes were the bigger problem than the fuel."