Toto Wolff raged over the “unacceptable” behavior of Lewis Hamilton | F1 | Sports

Toto Wolff criticizes Verstappen for Bottas crash

Today the drivers are fighting for pole position in the 22nd and final round of the Formula 1 season. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen qualified the fastest last year, followed by Mercedes-Valtteri Bottas at the top. The race has been largely touted as the Verstappen vs. Lewis Hamilton bill, the “decision maker in the desert,” with the race being held at the Abu Dhabi GP’s Yas Marina circuit.

On Friday, Hamilton set the fastest time in practice two, while rival Verstappen finished fourth.

The pair have argued all season, dubbed “bitter rivals” by many.

Last year, the couple crashed on the track several times.

In one case, Verstappen called Hamilton off after he was accused of crashing the Red Bull driver at Silverstone.

Here, Verstappen said he was “disappointed” that Hamilton had not received a higher penalty for taking what he described as a “dangerous move”.

While Hamilton’s contemporary rivalry played with Verstappen, he has had other racing enemies, including drivers on his own team.

Toto Wolff: The Mercedes boss raged over Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg (Image: GETTY)

Mercedes: The team boss regularly cracked down on the behavior of his drivers (Image: GETTY)

In 2014, Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, was at the end of his tether after a long argument between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who both drove for Mercedes.

At the time, he said he was tired of making Hamilton and Rosberg feel like they were being treated the same.

The two had trained together as kart drivers in their youth.

When we became teammates in 2013, however, one of the most widespread rivalries in recent Formula 1 history blossomed.

Their relationship became strained and sometimes resulted in violent confrontations on and off the track.

At the height of their rivalry, the couple faced suspension.

It was all compared to the cheers and senna rivalries of the eighties and nineties.

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Max Verstappen: The Red Bull driver is neck and neck with Lewis Hamilton in this year’s F1 (Image: GETTY)

Wolff’s anger came after the first pre-season test in Jerez, where Mercedes had a pace advantage over the rest of the field, making it clear that the title fight would be fought between Hamilton and Rosberg.

But since Mercedes allowed both drivers to compete for individual honors rather than forcing team orders, Wolff admitted that he was constantly tired of reassuring Hamilton and Rosberg that neither had an advantage over the other.

Speaking of the second lap collision between Hamilton and Rosberg, he told Sky Sport F1: “The anger wasn’t particularly focused on Nico, the anger was on the whole situation.

“Every weekend we had new challenges, every weekend we had to mediate between the drivers, every weekend we had to judge and invest time to balance things out.

“It got to a point where I felt I had had enough.

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Lewis Hamilton: He’s tied with Verstappen (Image: GETTY)

Nico Rosberg: The relationship between the two of them was strained during their time as Mercedes team-mates (Image: GETTY)

“I’ve had enough, it’s not always my job to make both feel good and that was the end for me.

“It had to come to an end, so in hindsight, Spa was a very important step and milestone for the team because it ended there.

“We never had a controversy after that, it was very competitive, it wasn’t always easy, it was still a challenge, but we understood that there was a big fight between the two and that harmony wasn’t a feeling we were from They could expect both of them and we could not.

“But we haven’t had another situation that harmed the team and was disrespectful to the team because we’ve worked hard to deliver a car that can win the world championship and you don’t throw away races like we did at Spa. “

Far from dividing the team into two competing halves, Wolff claimed the failures allowed Mercedes to underpin their goals for the season.

He said, “There has been a lot of talk about blackout and not blackout – we need to reconcile within the team and make sure the team is aligned and we have a common point of view.

Hamilton statistics: Hamilton statistics as of December 2020 (Image: Express Newspapers)

“We spent a lot of time analyzing what happened with both sides of the garage and agreed that we don’t want something like this to happen again.

“We left these meetings in a very good mood – unlike before. We had cleared the air.

“To reconcile ourselves in order to be successful, we said: ‘Give us a few days’.

“We had to decide how we wanted to continue and that was very important for the team and the drivers to see that this was a priority for the team.

“Then at the end of the week we would see each other and talk things over and go out, respect each other and remember the rules of engagement and remember how we wanted to move on and what the goals were.

“The goals were to win the first ever constructors ‘championship for Mercedes and to win the drivers’ championship in a way that we can be proud of.”

Abu Dhabi: Vertsappen hopes to stop Hamilton’s clean winning streak (Image: GETTY)

Rosberg became F1 champion in 2016 and retired shortly afterwards.

Hamilton has won it every year since 2017.

Today, Verstappen and Hamilton are tied before the final, so everything has to be played.

Formula 1 asked many of the drivers involved in the race who they thought would win.

While most were undecided, the overall result was an even distribution between the two.

The qualifying races for tomorrow’s Grand Prix will take place between 1pm and 2pm today.