Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were involved in fierce rivalry during their time together as Mercedes teammates. Team boss Toto Wolff reveals that he had to take matters into his own hand to settle the issues.
Their rivalry reached the tipping point which saw multiple collisions and both on and off-track war of words. The duo that used to be best friends during their junior years had turned into foes.
The relationship between the duo worsened during the 2016 situation. Ever since Hamilton’s arrival at the Mercedes F1 team in 2013, he had been at the top of his game.
Once the Silver Arrows’ began its era of dominance in the 2014 season, Hamilton won two consecutive seasons and beat his teammate. The situation did not please his teammate and he came back stronger in the 2016 season but that was filled with crashes between the two.
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Major collisions between Hamilton and Rosberg in 2016
The dynamics between the duo changed in the 2016 season. The biggest collision came at the Spanish GP when the Briton saw some space and tried to overtake Rosberg.
But the German driver was caught off guard and he crashed into Hamilton pushing his teammate off the track which made Hamilton lose the grip and hit Rosberg in return. Both the drivers had to retire from the race.
Then again at the Austrian GP, the duo crashed but only Rosberg had suffered retirement. Hamilton, on the other hand, went on to win the race.
Toto Wolff took matters into his own hands
Following the issues between his driver, team principal Toto Wolff took the matters into his own hands and scolded them for their behaviours.
In an interview with The Times in 2022, Wolff revealed that he had asked both drivers to come into the room where all the engineers were sitting.
He yelled at them and asked them to look at everyone and imagine everyone at home and their families and analyse how the drivers made the team look.
“I told them if that happened again, I wouldn’t hesitate to throw them out of the car. I said, “Don’t challenge me – you don’t want to find out what I’m capable of,” Wolff revealed.
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