Nico Rosberg took the lead with a good move around the outside of Turn 1 on the opening lap, with Lewis Hamilton looking to fight back on the approach to Turn 4. Rosberg moved to the inside to defend and Hamilton swerved to the right which left him on the grass. The defending champion lost control on the grass and slid sideways into Rosberg at Turn 4, wiping both cars out.

After a meeting in the Mercedes engineering truck involving both drivers, Wolff, Paddy Lowe and Niki Lauda, Wolff believes neither was wholly to blame.

“We spoke to both drivers, it’s not a clear cut… Very difficult situation for the team,” Wolff said. “We’ve lost 43 points after a huge effort in the last couple of weeks but we let the driver’s race and sometimes this is what happens. The stewards are going to make a decision on how they see it. In our opinion not to want to blame entirely, let’s see.

“It’s a very difficult situation and they are both pretty upset, they know about the effort and of course they have their perspective and we need to talk with them again, look at the pictures, look at the data and any under circumstances avoid this happening in the future.”

With Lauda blaming Hamilton for the collision, Wolff says the team could come to a different conclusion once it has studied the incident.

“Yeah Niki has from his driver’s perspective, he has an opinion and this is his instinct and it’s fair enough that he has that but if you look at the data and when you have the discussions with the drivers it’s maybe different.”