Okay, time for a bit of click-bait in the wake of Toto Wolff’s mildly ferocious threat (or rather a passive aggressive bluff) to sack his drivers if they can’t keep their toys inside the prams.
Since clinching the World Driver’s Championship in Austin, Lewis Hamilton has not only dropped more form than Steven Seagal, but added insult to injury by labelling his job as “done” and questioning Mercedes’ brains trust whenever he found himself staring at his teammate’s gearbox through a set of binoculars.
Proportionately, Nico Rosberg was just as cantankerous when he found himself in the same steamboat earlier in the season and it appears that after threatening to make “unpopular calls” back in April, Wolff is ready to think about making a robust decision, sometime in the future.
“We struggle sometimes in winning races on Sunday and having always one [driver] upset, and this spills over into the team,” admitted Wolff. “It is something that needs to stop.”
“Going forward, we will consider if it is the best set-up for the team. Personality and character within the team is a crucial ingredient for the team success. If we feel that it is not aligned with the general consensus, spirit and philosophy within the team, we might consider that when we take a decision, in terms of the driver line-up going forward.”
Way to dance around the point, but you get the drift. Although it’s highly unlikely that either Mercedes driver will find themselves staring at a P45 over the Christmas break, Wolff’s warning does serve up a tantalising reverie for conspiracy theorists.
Let’s take Mercedes’ perspective. Over the past 24 months they’ve built head and shoulders the best car on the grid, which has propelled the best driver to two world championships. So what if they didn’t have the best driver? Well, according to pundits that guy finished second in the championship two years running.
If the Silver Arrows can walk the championship with any jockey on the grid, surely that would do more for the brand than quality-testing bikini spandex in Barbados. Of equivalent benefit would be the challenge served up to Hamilton if he were to find himself in slightly sub-par machinery and still be in the thick of a title fight. That’s if we’re to believe his claims of “not wanting an advantage”.
So then, what to do with a testy world champ who’s forgotten which side his bread’s buttered? Even Fernando Alonso has established that sabbaticals are for chumps, but there is of course that convenient engine deal with Williams…
Former Williams technical chief Patrick Head told Autosport back in 2008 that Williams had the opportunity to sign Hamilton back in 2004 on the happenstance of Hamilton and his father Anthony wandering into Grove after falling out with benefactors McLaren while the Hamilton was competing in the Formula Three Euroseries.
“They rang up and said ‘can we come and see you?’,” Head said. “And they came in and said ‘[McLaren boss] Ron Dennis has dropped us’.
“We were with BMW at the time and I think Frank [Williams] rang [BMW’s then-motorsport director] Mario Theissen and said ‘look, this guy looks as if he could be pretty good and whatever and he has come to us saying can we help him’,” Head continued.
“So much to Frank’s annoyance [now], he could have had Lewis in a Williams.”
In this fantasy scenario, he still could. But who would Frank Williams trade?
When not plugged into the car Williams probably has Valtteri Bottas suspended upside-down in a locked glass-and-steel cabinet until the year 2050, so that option’s out of the question, but not so with Felipe Massa – who Williams has hinted could be on the outer himself if the Brazilian endures another lacklustre season.
What a score then for Mercedes! If there’s anyone who knows the team game better than anyone it’s Massa; who lost his best title chance with more decorum than Hamilton does when winning.
A Mercedes drive would more than nudge a firecracker up the Brazilian’s derriere and Hamilton would get the opportunity to assume the Ayrton Senna mantle he nestles so dearly by taking up where Senna left off at Williams. Not to mention the dozens of British periodicals that would fly off the shelves should Hamilton join Britain’s favourite racing team.
Everyone’s a winner baby and if you think Hamilton’s contract might force a gridlock, remember that the Briton did negotiate his own deal. Toto’s talking tough and as an ex-driver he has a better business head than the current Formula One grid combined.
I hope Lewis has remembered to dot every ‘i’.
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