A call over team radio from your team boss during a Grand Prix, is a last resort effort to communicate to a Formula One driver a message he has been given repeatedly already and in the golden days of Mercedes dominance, this was something the relatively inexperienced Toto Wolff was forced to do on more than one occasion.
At the height of their titanic struggle for the 2016 drivers’ F1 championship, the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg hit lows not seen since the angst of the Prost and Senna team mate days back in the early 1990’s. As early as the Spanish Grand Prix there was blue on blue tragedy at the Spanish Grand Prix when Hamilton attempted an adventurous more into turn four resulting in both the silver arrows cars beached in the kitty litter.
Wolff flashback to blue on blue in Spain
T intra-team battle raged for most of the season with each employing physiological warfare on the other. Wolff was to suffer a flashback to this event at last year’s event in Barcelona where in the closing stages of Q2, Hamilton and Russell collided in an odd fashion.
Rosberg reflected on the similarity and lifted the lid on Toto’s response to the 2016 nightmare at turn four. “I didn’t see Lewis coming. How was I supposed to know he was behind me? Very comparable, actually,” said the Sky F1 commentator.
“First of all, a roaring Toto came in. Rightly so, logically. He then has said the first word on Sunday, very consistently, and then there was absolute silence for us at first, that was very, very difficult,” revealed Hamilton’s former team mate. Both Mercedes were then sent to Niki Lauda’s home in Ibiza the following day for mediation talks and a probable clip round the ear.
This year has been problematic for Lewis Hamilton. His deficit to his team mate after nine rounds of the world championship is 8-1 and in qualifying too. Russell scored the first podium for his team in Montreal, but it required a moment where Toto held; d his breath as the junior driver battled to pass Hamilton with two laps to go.
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Hamilton has been accused of playing physiological games this year and a narrative that the W15 car is so poor, it requires him to make wild setup changes in an attempt to find a good balance. Meanwhile George settles early in practice on a setup direction and then fine tunes it until the cars go out for qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
Following the race in Shanghai, a former engineer who worked with Lewis at McLaren, Mark Priestly, questions the wisdom of Hamilton’s narrative and the reasons behind it. “Why is he is experimenting? What is all of that about?” Priestley questioned in a post on his YouTube channel.
“He is being beaten by George Russell on a consistent basis now and if you say you are going to do some massive experiment and gamble on things like set-up, it takes a little bit of the pressure off.
“I don’t want to say the word excuses, I don’t want to suggest it’s just giving him excuses to not perform, but to some extent it does do that. It takes a little bit of the pressure off if you are being beaten.”
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Former F1 car designer Gary Anderson has accused Hamilton of hampering Mercedes’ progress with the big changes in setup, as the team can never find a baseline with which to work and develop upgrades.
Writing in his Telegraph column the former engineer explains: “It limits learning about the car. If that is absent then the development path, knowing what to work on in the wind tunnel and improving aerodynamic performance, will be confused too.
“It leaves a team with no positive direction,” concludes the exF1 engineer.
In Monaco Hamilton was up to his old tricks again after qualifying just 0.08 seconds behind George Russell. He suggested his team mates extra performance was due to a new front wing upgrade on his car, something Lewis did not have. “I anticipated it would be difficult to out qualify George because he has the upgraded component, but it’s just great to see that we are bringing upgrades. I know automatically that I’m going to lose two-tenths [to George] going into qualifying. That’s definitely frustrating,” Lewis told assembled media.
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The seven times champion went on to suggest there was even a conspiracy with the team favouring George claiming he does “not anticipate being ahead of George in qualifying particularly this year.” When pressed why he thought this would be the case, Lewis paused for effect then merely replied: “we’ll see.”
However fellow racer and Williams development driver Jamie Chadwick suggested to Channel 4 that Hamilton is “spinning it” to suit his narrative.
I think he knows what he’s doing,” Jamie Chadwick claimed before going on to become the first female in 14 years to win an IndyNXT race. “He’s spinning it to make it sound like he’s maybe not got the upgrades this weekend which for me, I’m not sure about because a team like Mercedes, they generally always bring upgrades to both cars.”
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Commenting on George Russells dominance of his team mate this year, Chadwick concluded: “He [Hamilton] is on his way out next year,” she added, “George is going to be staying in that seat for what they hope is a long time so they need to keep that seat and keep George happy.
“And obviously that might come off the back of maybe Lewis being not so happy but at the same time he’s [George] done an incredible job, he’s smashing him.”
Following the close call between Russell and Hamilton in Canada, the Mercedes chief appeared impervious as his drivers battled it out on track. Russell blew by Hamilton on lap 68 of the 70-lap contest to secure third place, while the seven times champion had to settle for fourth. Asked after the race if the fight had been a little too close, team principal Wolff replied: “No, I’ve had much worse.”
Wolff instructs Russell in Canada
Yet Wolff spoke to Russell during the race via his race engineer who revealed the instruction to George was: “We are racing. Just remember… keep it clean, please.”
Since Hamilton’s last race win, some 54 Grand Prix ago, George has collected the only two victories the former world champions have been able to claim.
While their is a danger of a rift between the Mercedes pair developing should Russell continue ‘smash’ Hamilton for the remainder of the season. However, Lewis may become resigned to his fate and look to the future at Ferrari where he hopes he will be given a more competitive car.
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