Mercedes feud: The fight gets hotter

Back-to-back Formula One race weekends are always most effective when the preceding race is contentious. The controversy simmers throughout the week and returns more pointed, more damning, after three days of analysis.

The latest Mercedes intra-team spat at the Austrian Grand Prix, one week before the British Grand Prix, follows exactly this template.

This column has already considered the crash itself – essentially that Nico Rosberg’s brain snapped under the strain of mental replay after mental replay of Lewis Hamilton’s aggressive defending, causing him to brazenly push Hamilton off the road.

However, a second fascinating chapter has since been written by Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda.

Appearing on Servus TV before the Austrian Grand Prix, Lauda first responded to Hamilton’s claim in Azerbaijan that his relationship with Rosberg was “really, really good, surprisingly”.

The Briton told London’s Daily Mail of June 25, “The other day I was swimming in my pool … and I guess he saw me from his apartment and came down and sat on the diving board, and when I finished a few laps we sat and talked for 20 minutes or half an hour.”

Lauda was having none of it.

“Lewis lied about that,” he told Servus TV. “He just said something. He wanted to be the softener in order to have his peace last weekend. He does what he can. The fight gets hotter the longer Nico is in front.”

More surprising, however, was the Austrian’s revelation that Hamilton, who projected an image of calmness in the face of adversity after his crash in qualifying for the European Grand Prix in Baku, trashed his room in frustration that Saturday night.

“He told me I couldn’t come in because he was going to destroy everything. This is how it was,” said Lauda.

“He did it because he had crashed. He’ll have to pay for that [damage], you can count on that.”

The peek behind the Mercedes curtain – strangely enough via a television station owned by Red Bull mogul Dietrich Mateschitz, and in an interview featuring Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko – was stunning, given it appeared to blow a hole in Lauda’s star driver’s apparently delicately managed persona.

But further twists were in store: on the Wednesday before the British Grand Prix, Mercedes issued a withdrawal of the controversial commentary on behalf of its non-executive chairman.

“Niki Lauda would like to set the record straight and state the following,” it read.

“Lewis Hamilton did not in any way damage a hotel room or his private driver room at the circuit during the race weekend in Baku; and Lewis Hamilton did not lie about his relationship with teammate Nico Rosberg.

“Niki regrets any misunderstanding caused by comments that have been blown wildly out of proportion compared with the casual context in which they were made.”

It was subsequently noteworthy that Niki Lauda was absent from the press release issued the following day by the team in clarifying its stance on allowing its drivers to race – it proclaimed that “positive meetings were held between Toto Wolff, Paddy Lowe, Lewis Hamilton, and Nico Rosberg”, presenting a tantalising question mark over Lauda, who is understood to be exiting the chairman role next year.

Was this scenario a fleeting glimpse of something closer to the real Lewis Hamilton, a highly stage-managed racing personality gambling his reputation on gaining a psychological edge on his opponent, or a major misstep by a lifelong Formula One operator that was subsequently blown out of context when it was translated into English – and, if so, why?

In the Silverstone paddock the Mercedes team was keen to paint a happy picture under its refined – though completely undefined – ‘rules of engagement’. Hamilton and Rosberg both presented jovially, smiling and laughing with the press, as though the catastrophic internal fall-out had never happened – though all remained in easy reach of the team’s public relations unit at every turn.

Truth or fiction? Reality or façade? Time will reveal how accurate the team’s British Grand Prix appearances have been.

One thing, however, remains certain. The championship is coming down to a straight fight between silver-clad teammates, and with the spice of a contract negotiation and potentially tumultuous driver market added in, the atmosphere inside Mercedes remains volatile.

With half the season remaining, the team is more likely than not set to deal with further uncomfortable on-track action.