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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has clarified that there were no disagreements between him and Lewis Hamilton at the end of Q2 for the Imola GP when the pair appeared to be engaged in a heated argument.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Wolff claimed that the pair merely “vented” their frustrations to each other. He said:
“There was no disagreement at all. It doesn’t go any closer, like the two of us are. We were just so angry about the session overall. He vented to me and I vented to him. It was absolutely about the same thing.”
The Silver Arrows had their worst qualifying result since 2012 at Imola when both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell failed to qualify within the top-10. After getting out of his car when track conditions seemed unlikely to improve, Hamilton was captured on camera, engaged in an animated exchange with his team boss.
Speaking after the session, the seven-time world champion refused to go into the details of the conversation, stating that it was “internal to the team”.
Meanwhile, Hamilton’s former teammate at Mercedes and childhood friend Nico Rosberg weighed in on the incident, saying that Wolff might have been “angry” at Hamilton for not following the team’s instructions. Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Rosberg said:
“It’s very difficult to know what was said. If I had to speculate now it looks to me that Toto was annoyed about something that Lewis had done. Which it might be understandable. Lewis could have been very frustrated on the internal Mercedes garage radio or something. Complaining that they didn’t follow his thoughts on what they should have done on strategy or complaining about the car or something.”
Stress mounting at Mercedes as they struggle to find solutions to problems: Nico Rosberg
Former F1 world champion Nico Rosberg believes the heated exchange between Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff is a sign that Mercedes is frustrated with its lack of progress since the start of the season. Speaking to Sky Sports F1, he said:
“It just shows the stress is starting to get there, rather than going forward they are actually going backwards. They were almost two seconds a lap slower yesterday in qualifying, their worst qualifying in ten years. Lewis [Hamilton] also got out of the car before Q2 was over and it might be still a one percent chance the track could still be in a good shape towards the end of qualifying you know, so maybe Toto [Wolff] was angry about that.”
Hamilton and his teammate George Russell could only manage the 13th and 11th quickest times respectively on their initial runs in Q2. Following Carlos Sainz’s late shunt and the subsequent increase in rain, the track conditions worsened compared to the start of the session. Hamilton subsequently got out of his car even as the session was in progress.
Russell followed his teammate a few minutes later, taking both Mercedes drivers out of qualifying, even before Q2 was complete.
