Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says a "miscommunication" caused by the timing of the team's flight home caused the short-lived protest of Max Verstappen's driving after the Japanese Grand Prix.
Verstappen held off Hamilton late in the race at Suzuka with a move Wolff later called refreshing but potentially over the line. Mercedes formally protested Verstappen's driving, but by the time it was lodged the Dutchman and Lewis Hamilton had already left the circuit.
Wanting to speak to both drivers, the FIA said it would have to defer the protest -- and therefore keep the result provisional -- until this weekend's U.S. Grand Prix. A confusing couple of minutes followed, where Hamilton deleted one tweet and then questioned the team's protest in another, before Mercedes withdrew the complaint.
Wolff says team representatives still at the circuit had been unable to contact him at the crucial moment a decision had to be made about lodging a complaint.
"It was a miscommunication," he explained in Austin's Friday press conference. "When we left the circuit, I said that the Verstappen manoeuvre was a hard manoeuvre but probably what we want to see in F1. It is refreshing and I think the drivers need to sort that out among themselves on track. We decided not to step in.
"Then there was an unfortunate coincidence that we took off and left and the team had a minute to decide whether to protest or not. And that is what they did. Once we were able to communicate again, which was 30 minutes after take-off, we decided to withdraw the protest."
Hamilton's tweets came after a weekend which saw the Englishman at odds with the media for what he felt was "disrespectful" to the media for the reporting of his use of Snapchat in a press conference. The world champion has looked much more relaxed in Austin this weekend and Wolff thinks Suzuka was just an example of pressure getting the better of him.
"I think that generally all of us we underestimate the pressure that is on these guys. A couple of races before the end of the season there is all to win and all to lose. And I guess after Malaysia when he was in the lead, 25 points to take, the engine blew up.
"That was a very difficult situation for him to cope. As cool as someone might seem to the outside, inside it kind of eats you up -- and that may be why the weekend in Suzuka was a bit difficult for him. He knows exactly that there is a job to be done in the car and a job to be done outside of the car, and it just needs small inputs, not more, and that is what happened.
"We had a couple of conversations but it was generally about how things can be improved. Not a headmaster kind of discussion."