Mercedes apologises to Lewis Hamilton for error

Hamilton dominated from the front throughout the race, enjoying a lead of over 14 seconds during the closing stages of the race when Max Verstappen crashed heavily after contact with Romain Grosjean. With the safety car deployed for the incident, Hamilton pitted but saw his lead wiped out as Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel stayed on track.

Hamilton finished third as his team-mate won from Vettel, and Wolff said after the race it was a "misjudgement" by the team.

"There is nothing else to do than apologise to Lewis, it was a misjudgement in the heat of the moment," Wolff said. "I'm sorry for Lewis that we made the mistake and I'm sorry for Lewis. It should have been a perfect 1-2 today.

"We made a decision and it was the wrong decision. We need to analyse it and to apologise to Lewis."

Hamilton also revealed in the driver press conference there had been a discussion over whether to pit or not, with the team originally telling him to stay out.

"I saw a screen and it looked like the team was out, so I thought Nico had pitted," Hamilton said. "I couldn't see the guys behind so I thought the guys behind had pitted. When the team said to stay out I said that these tyres would drop in temperature and thought that these guys were going to be on options and I was on the harder tyre, so we said to pit. So with that thinking I came in with full confidence."