MERCEDES AT WAR
Fresh feud between Lewis and Nico spells trouble in paradise
TEMPERS are frayed and eye contact is being avoided in the white tent of Mercedes’ paddock hospitality area. It is not long after yet another one- two finish, this time in Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix, for a team that has already won the world constructors’ and drivers’ titles. What could possibly be wrong in paradise?
Not only is there division between their two drivers, the race winner Nico Rosberg, and the recently-crowned triple champion Lewis Hamilton, but friction between team principal Toto Wolff and chairman Niki Lauda. So annoyed was Wolff that Lauda was being interviewed that he refused to conduct his own customary press conference. The team’s media manager told journalists Wolff was their sole spokesman and that they should not speak to Lauda.
This is ironic, if nothing else, because Lauda works for the German channel RTL during race weekends, offering his views on sundry matters relating to his teams and others.
As for the drivers, Hamilton’s equilibrium after the success of the season was not easily disturbed, but he felt the team had called him in for a second change of tyres unnecessarily. He was leading because Rosberg had himself gone into the pits to be re-shod for a second time. The two Mercedes were so far ahead the team used their advantage to take fresh tyres, to guard against possible later wear. Hamilton, however, wanted to press on, believing his rubber could get him to the end and deliver the win. Hamilton questioned the order, staying out a lap longer while he gathered information, before acceding to the request, saying: ‘I think that’s the wrong call, but I am coming in.’
Asked after the race if he thought the race had been orchestrated for Rosberg, he said: ‘No. I never think those kind of things,’ before seemingly contradicting himself by adding: ‘The team has felt the need to be extra warm… I do know what I mean, but I’m not going to say what I mean. This weekend he did a good job. But you should ask Toto and Niki how they feel about it. About what they have to do behind the scenes to keep him happy.’
Turning to the strategy, Hamilton said: ‘There was no risk. There was nothing for me to lose. We have won the constructors’ championship, so let me take a risk, let’s go for it. But we did what we did and we still got the one-two.’
Lauda, though, explained: ‘It’s simple: the strategists sit on the pit wall and take a decision. If the drivers like it or not, that’s the way it is.’
It is easy to see Hamilton’s point, but if the team had brought in Rosberg and not him, it would have arbitrarily distorted the result. The German was in charge of the race and deserved the win. Asked about how they were getting on, Rosberg said: ‘I’m not going to comment on relations. You can see it from the outside anyway.’
The sores from the previous week in Austin, where Hamilton won the title after taking the lead at the start with an aggressive move on his team-mate and then benefiting from Rosberg’s veering off track towards the end, remain troublesome.
Hamilton said: ‘He never asked me for an apology (for the move at the start). He didn’t congratulate me either. I went up to him in Austin and shook his hand, but after that…’
Hostilities will be resumed in Sao Paulo on November 15. There is no sign of peace breaking out.