Toto Wolff thinks drivers would "lose every single race" if they were allowed to call their own strategies from the cockpit.
After the Brazilian Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton said he would have liked to try a different strategy to Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg to try and unlock some of the pace he felt he was losing in the dirty air behind. Mercedes did not let Hamilton deviate from the three-stop strategy it put both its drivers on once Sebastian Vettel had pitted earlier than expected in the race.
Mercedes boss Wolff has no problem with Hamilton questioning the team's strategy during the heat of a grand prix.
"The driver in the car being emotional is understandable," Wolff said. "We hired guard dogs and we don't want to have any puppies - and we want them to be guard dogs. Sometimes it is a bit more intense but it is okay."
However, he thinks the emotional state drivers find themselves in during a race is one reason strategy must always be dictated from the pit wall.
"We are going to keep one strategist. If the driver in the car starts to determine strategy then he is going to lose every single race because that is not an instinct-driven decision. Your instinct might be right sometimes but if you are not having the full set of data you are going to get the majority of your races wrong so that is why we are going to keep it why it is.
Not switching Hamilton's strategy nullified his challenge for victory, meaning the only real action came lower down the order. Responding to the charge Mercedes' strategy made for a boring spectacle for fans, Wolff pointed out how the team has resisted implementing team orders.
"As a fan I can understand that absolutely. But there are various escalations. We could have done it like some teams have in the past of having a clear number one and a clearn number two, and the number two wouldn't come close to the other one. So we have changed that and sometimes it is difficult for us to manage letting the two fight each other and now you can even say, let's take it one step further and let the strategists play against each other but this is not where we want to go to.
"Controversy within the team is detrimental and we have kept the team together, not only the drivers, the travelling team in Brackley and Brixworth because the team comes first. From a fan stand point, I can understand, and from a team standpoint I will give a boring answer that we are not going to change it."