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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has expressed anger at wild accusations that Lewis Hamilton’s current Ferrari-bound team has had his progress deliberately held back – and said Mercedes is getting involved with police over one specific accusation.
Hamilton, who will move to Ferrari at the end of the current season, was notably second behind teammate George Russell in qualifying sessions this year – albeit by much smaller average margins than the ‘1-8’ head-to-head title. The team’s results in the Grand Prix qualifying sessions indicate that Hamilton still appears to have maintained his race advantage.
Hamilton has been somewhat vague about the nature of his qualifying deficit to Russell, but there have been no claims that he has been downgraded relative to Russell from anyone involved, let alone any suggestions that he has been deliberately pegged.
But an email (apparently written by a Mercedes “insider”, or at least easily interpreted that way) sent en masse to Formula 1 media figures – but also to senior Formula 1 and FIA staff – claimed exactly what That Hamilton was “systematically sabotaged” by Mercedes, without mentioning any specific ways to carry it out.
Wolff could barely hide his annoyance at the topic when asked about it on Friday at the Spanish Grand Prix.
“It wasn’t from a team member, it was… when we get those kind of emails, and we get a large number of them, it’s annoying, especially when it’s someone talking about death and all that stuff,” he said.
This appears to be a reference to the puzzling assertion in the email that Hamilton’s life could be put in danger by the strategy.
“On this particular matter, I have instructed to go full force, and we have the police investigating the matter, looking at the IP address, looking at the phone, all of that, because online abuse in this way has to stop, and people cannot hide,” Wolf added. behind their phones or computers and abusing teams or drivers in this way.”
“I don’t know what some conspiracy theorists and crazy people think. Lewis has been part of the team for 12 years, we have a friendship, we trust each other, we will finish this on a high, we will do it.” We want to celebrate the relationship – and if you don’t believe all that, you can believe that we want to win the World Constructors’ Championship, and part of the World Constructors’ Championship is to get both cars to win!
“So, to all those crazy people out there: Take [talk to] Shrink.”
In a later answer, Wolff spoke about the anonymous nature of the accusations in particular and noted that “there is always a limit” after which “the joking stops” and Mercedes is forced to treat this matter as a serious matter.
He stressed that in addition to the team and non-driver personnel, Hamilton himself had been subjected to “nasty” online abuse, as had happened to Russell.
He again criticized the “irrationality” of claims that Mercedes would hinder Hamilton in any way.
“Because… we want to be successful, we want to be successful with the most famous driver the sport has ever seen,” Wolff said.
“It’s an honor to work with Lewis. He’s a great driver and a great personality. He goes through ups and downs like any other sports person… I completely respect his reasons for moving to Ferrari. There’s no ill will.” “There’s no bad feeling.”
In this regard, Fred Vasseur, Hamilton’s soon-to-be team boss – Ferrari F1 boss and a good friend of Wolff – was involved.
“I’m putting my relationship with Toto aside; how can you imagine that in a company with 1,500 people working day and night, pushing so hard to bring upgrades – and for you it’s not enough but bringing upgrades at every race – we can kill one of our cars or damage one of our cars? Completely logical, no one in the ring would do something like that.
“We are fighting for the championship, and every weekend we try to score one point more than the other. How can you imagine us [a team would] Say: ‘Okay, Louis, we don’t want to score any more points with you?’
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