“Cowards.” “Mad people.” “Lunatics.” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was justifiably scathing in his opinion of those spreading conspiracy theories about his team’s treatment of Lewis Hamilton.
Some of Hamilton’s more extreme supporters have been firing off emails making wild accusations about Mercedes’ treatment of him. One received by RaceFans did not claim to come from a team member, and while some publications stated they received emails from whistleblowers within Mercedes, others believed the references to ‘team’ in fact meant ‘team LH’ – i.e., Hamilton’s supporters.
Regardless, Wolff made it clear the emails did not come from a Mercedes team member and added that the police are looking into the matter, as the implications of some of the claims needed to be taken very seriously.
It should be self-evident that it’s not in Mercedes’ interest to sabotage one of their cars. Even so, Wolff spelled out his and the team’s commitment to Hamilton, notwithstanding his impending departure to Ferrari at the end of the season.
“Lewis was part of the team for 12 years,” he said. “We have a friendship. We trust each other. We want to win this. We want to end this on a high. We want to celebrate the relationship.
“If you don’t believe all of that, then you can believe that we want to win the constructors’ world championship. And part of the constructors’ world championship is making both cars win.”
Those words probably fell on deaf ears to those who long ago made up their minds that Hamilton’s team have it in for him and set out to find ‘proof’. But Hamilton’s next (and former) team principal, Ferrari’s Frederic Vasseur, had withering words of his own:
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“How you could imagine that a company with 1,500 people, working night and day, pushing like hell to bring upgrades… each races, we could kill one of our cars or damage one of our cars? This is completely irrational and nobody in the paddock could do something like this.
“We are fighting for the championship. Each weekend we are trying to score one point more than the other one. How you could imagine that we say ‘okay, that Lewis, we don’t want to score points anymore with him’.”
“For me it’s completely irrational and completely out…
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