Toto Wolff Given Slap on the Wrist for Publicly Disrespecting Lewis Hamilton: “This Guy’s a Seven-Time World Champion”

Lewis Hamilton had his Austrian GP weekend completely ruined by an enemy common to all the drivers – track limits. After being handed out a time penalty for violating the track limits repeatedly, Hamilton kept complaining about other drivers also going off the track. He was upset about them not getting penalties like him. His incessant complaining forced Toto Wolff to come on the radio to shut him up, something that did not sit well with F1 expert Peter Windsor.

Things started going wrong for Hamilton in Austria when he was given a 5-second penalty for failing to keep his Mercedes within the white lines, with more than two-thirds of the race remaining. Hamilton was naturally quite frustrated, as he came on the team radio and kept complaining about Sergio Perez and Lando Norris, who were also going off at turn 10.

However, things reached the boiling point when Hamilton asked his team, “Is there a reason why stewards haven’t given those penalties yet?” While his race engineer Bono tried to calmly explain things to Hamilton, team principal Toto Wolff seemed exasperated.

He came on the radio and said, “Lewis the car is bad, we know. Please drive it!” This was probably an indirect response to Hamilton by Wolff. The seven-time world champion previously told his race engineer that his car wasn’t responding as well as he wanted it to. This was seemingly why he was struggling to keep the car within track limits.

Peter Windsor believes that Lewis Hamilton deserves more respect

F1 journalist Peter Windsor spoke about the aforementioned incident in his race analysis on YouTube. He explained that the comment from Wolff left a bad taste in his mouth. Windsor described the interaction as a “Schoolmaster talking to his pupil”

Windsor said, “To speak to Lewis like that, you know. This guy is a seven times World Champion. He does kind of deserve a little bit more respect than that.”

Windsor explained that the only thing Hamilton would want to do at the moment is enjoy racing. It is evident that he won’t be winning races in that Mercedes, so the least that he can do is have fun with the car. But Wolff talking to him like a school principal, won’t help him do that.

Toto Wolff explains his comments

After the race, Wolff tried to explain why he spoke to Hamilton in the way he did. He clarified that he was trying to keep Hamilton focused on the race and doing the best with what he had at the moment.

He said as reported by Marca, “I said it in the interest of the drivers and the team. Sometimes there is a certain moment when you need to calm things down. But I did it with the best of intentions.”

Wolff also spoke about how disappointed they were with their performance in Austria. He said that they were on an upward curve but having a bad result all of a sudden derailed their momentum. Mercedes are bringing in some major upgrades in Silverstone. They hope this will turn the tides in their favor once again.