Toto Wolff has a stern message as he initiats a police inquiry into ‘sabotage’ email sent accusing Mercedes of threatening Lewis Hamilton.
Ever since the Monaco GP, the social media brigade has kick-started various conspiracy theories which is centering around Hamilton being subject to target from Mercedes in favour of George Russell, considering the former’s pending departure.
It intensified after Canada when the strategy clicked in favour of Russell. The social media has been lit with theories and between Canada and Spain, an email surfaced with a message notifying ‘life threating’ situation for Hamilton within Mercedes.
Having seen the content of the mail, it has allegedly come from a team member, who has accused Mercedes – largely team boss Wolff – of ‘systematic sabotaging’ Hamilton since he is leaving the F1 team. The mail states that the Austrian is vindictive of the Brit leaving.
‘Toto is vindictive and is like a scorned wife no longer speaking with Lewis but is doing everything possible to get back at him’, it read, where Hamilton’s race engineer Bono and a group of other mechanics are only ones at the side of the Brit for his wellbeing.
The messenger feels it is ‘dangerous’ and ‘life threatening’ for Hamilton, and warns Wolff and co that everyone will not be part of his ‘unprofessional destruction’ for his ‘self gratification’. Along with the mail, some Whatsapp messages have been sent too.
When asked Hamilton during the Spanish GP media session, the Brit noted that he wasn’t aware of any such thing, while Wolff expressed his displeasure on the matter. He stated that no one from the team has sent such a mail and that police is on the case now.
Wolff added a stern message for the people who hide behind social media. “So it’s not from a member of the team,” he said. “When we are getting these kind of emails, and we’re getting tons of them, it is upsetting, particularly when somebody is talking about death and all these things. So, on this particular one, I have instructed to go in full force.
“We have the police inquiring it. We are researching the IP address. We are researching the phone, all of that, 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. I don’t know what some of the conspiracy theorists and lunatics think out there.
“Lewis was part of the team for 12 years. We have a friendship. We trust each other. We want to win this. We want to end this on a high. We want to celebrate the relationship. And if you don’t believe all of that, then you can believe that we want to win the Constructors’ World Championship.
“And part of the Constructors’ World Championship is making both cars win. So to all of these mad people out there… take a shrink,” summed up Wolff, who pressed further on coward people who do such things on social media. He even mentioned the situation around Kelly Piquet and Max Verstappen, where fans are accusing the Brazilian for destroying personal relationships of the Dutchman and others.
“I’m not reading any comments [on social media],” started Wolff. “I don’t have social media. And I think it’s important to protect oneself by doing so. And I’ve commented about this many times before, there will always be people that have their laptop on the chest in their bedroom and just typing away.
“And if people feel like they’re abusing, want to abuse and hit out and hide behind a made-up Instagram account or anything else, that for me is… Come up, say who you are, and we’ll take the criticism and discuss, but don’t hide. And there seems to be lots of irrationality also, because we want to be successful.
“We want to be successful with the most iconic driver the sport has ever had. The privilege that we had to work with Lewis as an incredible driver, a great personality, that goes through the ups and downs like any other like any other sports person. I totally respect the reasons for him going to Ferrari. There is no grudge. There is no bad feeling.
“The interaction we have in the team is positive. And so every comment from the outside of what is going in the team is just simply wrong. But there’s always a limit. I mean, if emails are being sent or telephone numbers are being used for these messages, then for me, the joking stops. And we will pursue it, whether that is successful or not.
“But there are limits to certain things. And obviously, online abuse is not only something that happens to us or to the team or to the people, it happens badly to Lewis, badly to Lewis, and to George. And therefore, people should, and we’ve seen Max speaking out about it and Kelly.
“People that abuse are cowards, because they hide. So whatever is going on out there with social media, with all the good things that it provides, and all those people that have been given a platform, that’s just the negatives that come with it. I have no feelings to someone that abuses for the reasons I just said before,” summed up Wolff.
Amid the discussions, Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur came to the aide of his friend Wolff. “Yeah just on this one, and I’m putting my relationship with Toto aside, how you could imagine that a company with 1,500 people working night and day, pushing like hell to bring upgrades, and for you it’s not enough, but bringing upgrades each races, we could kill one of our cars or damage one of our cars?
“This is completely irrational and nobody in the paddock could do something like this. We are fighting for the championship. Each weekend we are trying to score one point more than the other one. How you could imagine that we say ‘OK, that Lewis, we don’t want to score points anymore with him’. For me it’s completely irrational and completely out of the scope of the person who are doing my business,” said Vasseur.
Here’s Lewis Hamilton, George Russell on social media
Here’s George Russell on Mercedes scrutiny
Here’s Lewis Hamilton on shocking Canadian GP
Here’s George Russell, Toto Wolff on podium
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