Toto Wolff has taken a combative stance against abuse towards his team and reported an anonymous email, which claimed that the Mercedes team were sabotaging Lewis Hamilton’s season, to the police.
Wolff was forceful and clearly aggrieved over the email’s contents when speaking before this Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. The anonymous message had accused Mercedes of deliberately working against Hamilton, since he announced he was to leave the team to join Ferrari next season. It was critical of Wolff, the team principal, and of Hamilton’s teammate George Russell and stated the team were “on a dangerous course that could ultimately be life threatening to Lewis”.
It opened with the phrase “Some of us in the team are unhappy” but Wolff unequivocally stated it did not come from anyone at Mercedes and that they would not tolerate anonymous abuse.
“It is not from a member of the team,” he said. “We are getting these kinds of emails and we are getting tons of them – it is upsetting particularly when someone is talking about death and all these things.
“On this particular one I have instructed to go full-force with police inquiring it, researching the IP address, researching the phone number, because online abuse in that way needs to stop. People can’t hide behind their phones, or their computers, and abuse teams or drivers in a way like this.”
On Thursday Hamilton had rejected claims of any Mercedes bias against him and Wolff reiterated that position. “I don’t know what some of the conspiracy theorists, lunatics, think out there,” he added. “Lewis was part of the team for 12 years, we have a friendship, we trust each other, we want to win and end this on a high and celebrate the relationship.
“If you don’t believe all of that, then you can believe we want to win the constructors’ world championship and that is by making both cars win. To all of these mad people out there, take a shrink.”
The tone of the email suggested it was from a disgruntled fan, many of whom have been vocal in their abuse of Mercedes on social media, which Wolff also condemned.
“If people want to abuse and hit out and hide behind a made-up Instagram account or anything else, come out and say who you are and we will take the criticism and discuss but don’t hide,” he said.
“I totally respect the reason for Lewis going to Ferrari, there is no grudge, no bad feeling, the interaction in the team is positive, so every comment from the outside on what is going on in the team is simply wrong.”
There was further controversy on Friday in Barcelona when the struggling Alpine team confirmed the return of Flavio Briatore. The Italian was team principal when the Enstone operation was racing as Renault but was dismissed for his role in the Singapore GP “Crashgate” scandal of 2008. He has been appointed as an executive advisor by Alpine.
As team principal he was in charge when Michael Schumacher took titles in 1995 and 1996 and for Fernando Alonso’s championships in 2005 and 2006. However his time in F1 ended in ignominy after he was implicated in the scandal, revealed by the driver Nelson Piquet Jr, who had been instructed to crash deliberately at Marina Bay to prompt a safety car that benefited Alonso, who went on to win. Briatore was given a lifetime ban from F1 by the FIA, the governing body, which was subsequently overturned by a French court in 2010.
The events were enormously damaging to the reputation of the sport and Briatore had not been expected to return to any high-profile role in F1. However despite the recent calls for the sport to display the highest standards and reminders that the teams and drivers were all ambassadors for F1 during the furore around the investigation into the Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, Briatore’s return appeared to be taken with insouciance by leading team principals.
“I don’t really mind about the past. I am always looking at the future, and looking at what we can get and to get our team better,” said Bruno Famin, the Alpine team principal. Wolff, who said he was friendly with Briatore, said: “I think everybody deserves the opportunity to come back.” The Ferrari team principal, Fred Vasseur, observed: “He paid the price of this. If now he’s allowed to come back, he can come back.” F1, who might view the appointment of the disgraced former team principal less favourably given the enormous negative impact of the scandal on the sport, declined to comment, as did the FIA.
In first practice at Barcelona, McLaren’s Lando Norris was quickest from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, while in the afternoon session Hamilton was on top, two-hundredths clear of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, with Norris in third.
