Nico Rosberg lashes out on Toto Wolff’s attempts to defend Lewis Hamilton earlier this season.
Toto Wolff has defended Lewis Hamilton this season on multiple occasions. The Briton got a bad start to the season with a couple of races where he finished below expected.
Even after securing three podiums in a row now, Hamilton is still behind his teammate Russell who seems to be having a better season. The Briton leads the 7-time world champion by 5 points in the Drivers standings.
Toto Wolff believes Hamilton doesn’t deserve the hate and criticism he is getting. He came out to support the Briton and gave a statement to Square Mile:
“I need to protect him because people have started to hit out at him, which is not right.”
Wolff explains that it’s just the car, Hamilton still has the potential to win. He further explained why Russell is performing better than the Legendary driver:
“It’s complete nonsense — he’s the greatest driver of all-time. The car is just sub-par. George [Russell] has sometimes struggled a bit less because he’s maybe used to driving difficult cars at the back of the grid.”
Toto Wolff also supported Hamilton accounting his hard luck:
“Lewis was unlucky on many occasions. He could have scored another two podiums and then the pendulum would have swung. So it (the apology) is to make sure that everybody comprehends that the car is not performing and not that the driver is at fault.”
It’s not the first time that Toto Wolff came out to support Hamilton this season. Earlier in April, after a disappointing P14 finish at Imola, the Austrian again backed the seven-time world champion.
Right after the race, Wolff blamed the car and apologized to Hamilton on team radio:
“Sorry for what you have needed to drive today. I know this is undriveable and not what we deserve [inaudible], and we move from there. This was a terrible race.”
Rosberg lashes out on Toto Wolff’s response at Imola
Wolff apologized to Hamilton for the ‘undriveable’ car right after the race. However, former Mercedes driver and world champion Nico Rosberg was not happy with the statement.
He later told Sky Sports in an interview:
“It’s not quite the truth.”
Nico explained how that car was not really that bad. Taking into Toto Wolff’s radio message which cited Hamilton’s car as ‘undriveable,’ Rosberg compared Lewis’ performance with Russell’s.
“Let’s remember that [teammate George] Russell is in P4 with that same car. So Lewis definitely had a big role to play in that poor result this weekend,”
said Rosberg.
Nico Rosberg is famous for his epic rivalry with Lewis Hamilton. This rivalry which later got a documentary to its name is famous for being one of the fiercest rivalries to date in F1.
Nico Rosberg was a teammate of Lewis Hamilton from 2013 to 2016. The rivalry had many flashpoints, and some believe that Rosberg still has a sour taste for Hamilton from those epic clashes.
Even after being teammates, the duo collided on multiple occasions and crashed. The once friends became ready to turn into each other for winning the pinnacle of motorsports.
Team principal Toto Wolff had also commented on one of the most epic crashes the duo had at the 2016 Spanish GP:
“It was brainless,” a furious Toto Wolff told Sky F1 in 2016. “Cars colliding seems a deja-vu. It’s absolutely not what we want.”
The German retired from Formula one after defeating Lewis Hamilton and winning the 2016 season. In an interview with Eurosport a few weeks ago, he explained, that he regret nothing in those ‘Silver Wars.’
“I don’t regret anything from the battle with Lewis. That was a sensational time and a mega fight. I’m very proud of that. In the meantime, we’ve returned to neutral, which is okay.”
Nico Rosberg has been a huge critic of F1 ever since his retirement. He has criticized many and especially Hamilton on more than one occasion.
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