Who called Hamilton's strategy in Abu Dhabi?

At the 2015 season finale Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Mercedes powered to a 16th victory of the season and with it their 12th one-two finish of the season yet there were mixed signals coming out of the Silver Arrows camp regarding who actually called Lewis Hamilton's strategy on the day at Yas Marina Circuit.

Hamilton claims that he left the strategy up to the team, while team boss Toto Wolff insists that the team gave the F1 world champion freedom to call his game plan. So which is it?

During the race Rosberg from the lead was the first to stop for tyres, with Hamilton in the box a lap later. During this stint Hamilton closed to within a second of Rosberg.

When Rosberg pitted for a second set of tyres, Hamilton stayed out and was being reeled in at about half a second a lap before he made his final stop ten laps after his teammate.

But instead of emerging on the quicker super-soft compounds, the team bolted on a a set of yellow band soft tyres, however at this point the number 44 was a dozen seconds adrift of the lead and although Hamilton chased hard, it was Rosberg's victory.

After the race Hamilton told media, "You have to rely on the engineers to give you the optimum strategy at that point. Honestly I don't really understand it, I came out 11 seconds behind and had a mountain to climb and then the tyres went off."

When asked why he did not opt for the super-soft option tyres, Hamilton claimed, "I let the team make the call as I didn't know what was the right one."

This explanation is at odds with what team boss Wolff who said, "We gave him all the options this race and the tyre choice."

"It was an off-set strategy and it was worth consideration," added Wolff. "Go a bit longer, see how that pans out and then if you could have made that tyre last he could have gone on the option [tyre] and that would have been a real go to win the race. But the tyre wouldn't [last] and so it went into the third-best option."

The team told Sky Sport after the race that they did give Hamilton a choice of tyres but he didn't respond, which in turn made them go conservative to ensure he would make it to the finish without any stress.

At one point Hamilton was toying with the idea of going to the end with second set of tyres, and asked over the radio, "If I back off now and look after these tyres to the end, how much time would I need to slow?"

The team informed him that his idea would not work and he insisted they do the maths to make 100% sure. Which they did - it was not an option according to the clever chaps on the pit wall.

In the end Hamilton had to settle for second behind Rosberg, "The gap was way too big, we left it too big, particularly on the same tyres there is no way you are going to be able to catch that gap up."

"It is a shame because I was quicker in the middle stint so to have that pace and then come out 11 seconds behind is not a good feeling," mused the triple F1 world champion.