On a day Lewis Hamilton extended his championship lead to 50 points and Mercedes opened a 53 point gap to Mercedes, despite his team claiming a 1-2, Toto Wolff was not exactly in the mood for celebrating.

The controversial decision to order Valtteri Bottas to move aside for his teammate, just 24-hours after the Finn took a dramatic pole, didn't go down well with either driver or the fans.

Having told Bottas over the team radio that the matter would be discussed later - behind closed doors - Wolff admitted that though his heart wanted to see the Finn score his first win of the season, the harsh realities of the sport (business) said otherwise.

"You want to control everything," he told Sky Sports, "and there are a million scenarios we discussed in the morning, but we had a different one in the race.

"So we need to take a step back, fly back home, analyse and see what do we learn from a day like today," he added.

"We are all racers at heart and what we want to see is out-and-out racing and may the quickest man win," he insisted. "Then we are a bunch of rational guys and we discuss things in the morning and then everything is different in the race. And this is what happened today.

"We should be over the moon with a 1-2 and fundamentally we are," he admitted, "but we also feel that it went against Valtteri. It would have been a race win for him, and we changed it.

"It is deflating for the driver and it is deflating for a team. But there is a harsh reality also that on such a day you can extend the lead by seven points more, for a championship that has been very tough and very difficult at times and you have to take it and this is what we did today."

The Austrian confirmed that the decision to invoke team orders was the result of Hamilton blistering his tyres.

"It was one lap too late with Lewis and he lost a position to Sebastian," said Wolff. "This triggered, let's call it the mess, because we came out behind Sebastian. Lewis needed to attack, and that caused the blister and that blister we needed to protect when Seb was all over him."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by nonickname, 01/10/2018 15:30

"Hi Chris, I am still interested in the legal side of this. Is the E.U. with it's rules on everything happy with it and I am sure the QAmericans would not be happy with sports manipulation either.They even get pixxed when the player don't sing the anthem."

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2. Posted by mickl, 01/10/2018 15:08

"I personally am not that bothered by the team orders. They've always existed and always will in some form or another as it's a team sport also. If Lewis was, as he said, conflicted by it then he should have stayed behind and tried to make a proper overtake or else give the place back on the last lap. It's quite easy to be magnanimous when you've been handed the win.

If they'd have let them race and a Barcelona 2016 incident occurred then all the people against team orders will be saying Bottas should have been told to let Lewis pass."

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3. Posted by equator180, 01/10/2018 4:49

"Is this what Toto meant by wingman?"

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4. Posted by DeanM, 01/10/2018 1:47

"@Thomas1, yeah that's a good idea. Give BOT a sympathy win. I'm sure that would make him feel better. "Here ya go little guy, you can have this one... who's a good wing man?""

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5. Posted by YuppieScum, 30/09/2018 23:18

"Well, look at how else it could have played out, given that both HAM and VET were on fresher tyres than BOT, and were both faster. In fact, HAM told the team to ask BOT to speed up - he didn't or couldn't.

So, say the team told both drivers to hold station instead of swapping. HAM is running in dirty air while trying to fend off VET, and likely trashes his tyres. So VET gets past HAM, and possibly gets past BOT too - either way, VET closes the points gap in the WDC, and BOT doesn't appreciate the win as HAM was told not to overtake him.

Or say the team says they're allowed to race. There's no way that HAM is just going to sit behind BOT for 26 laps, especially with VET on his tail, and so makes a move. Best case is it's a clean and easy pass, and we get the result that actually happened.

But it wouldn't be easy - BOT would be defending, HAM would be attacking, and both would be taking life out of their tyres... so VET hangs back in some cleaner air, saves his tyres, lets them duke it out. He can wait for HAM to lock up or run wide, and pounces. Or mugs them both when they've no tyres left.

Or HAM makes an overly-optimistic lunge, or one of them locks up under braking, or under/oversteers out of a corner, and they touch. Best case is just anger in the team, and between team-mates. Most likely one or other has damage and slows down, or spins, letting VET by. Worst case is they both DNF - gifting VET the win.

No matter how it played out, right now we'd all be asking "WTF was Toto thinking, not telling BOT to let HAM past?"

"

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6. Posted by nonickname, 30/09/2018 19:40

"This all very interesting. Is the a lawyer out there who can enlighten us to the legal ruling on this subject. It is, after all 'rigging' of a sporting result in a similar manner to rigging a cricket match by buying a player or ball tampering
I am sure that is the E.U sporting rules were looked at the 'team rules' would not fare well.
Corporately it does not sit well either.It is right up there with lying to customers about the diesel emissions on cars.
One good thing about the advent of F1 betting next year is that it will stop this immediately as it breaks the rules of placing a bet on chance."

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7. Posted by zoom, 30/09/2018 18:11

"Bottas does everything asked of him yet Toto can't even give him a multi year contract."

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8. Posted by Thomas1, 30/09/2018 17:41

"Team Decision overrides individual wins in this case. There is nothing to feel bad about this decision.
If Val was winning, the team call would have been the same. The team decisions do not interfere with individual decisions normally. This is not a normal case. MB wants to protect their advantage. What Wolff and Lewis can do is reciprocate this behavior to Val towards the end race, may be in the last race and give a win to Val."

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9. Posted by Burton, 30/09/2018 16:55

"Woe is them, jumping ahead of Ferrari again with the new upgrade and having both cars ahead of them in the race, such a sad and despairing situation."

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10. Posted by Chris Roper, 30/09/2018 16:09

"Well at least it is out in the open and better than the days of "Multi 21" type calls.
It will only get worse with "in-race betting" swelling the coffers with situations where team orders are used to win a bet.

"

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11. Posted by Racer76, 30/09/2018 16:06

"And for those who can't recall. Spielberg 2002. A day of infamy. Just like today"

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12. Posted by Mig, 30/09/2018 16:01

"It was not necessary to invoke "team orders" for 7 lousy points!!!"

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13. Posted by Racer76, 30/09/2018 15:58

"Harsh Reality? That was just a version of "let Michael pass for the championship". I switched off the race then (I just noticed how long ago that was....) and I switched it off today. Let them race - this is how it used to be...."

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Wolff: There is a harsh reality

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