ANARCHY
M
ercedes bosses left open the possibility
of disciplinary action against Lewis
Hamilton after the Briton ignored their
orders while fighting team mate Nico Rosberg
for the Formula One championship on Sunday.
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff warned of
possible ‘anarchy’ and said he had yet to decide
how to respond to a situation that threatened to
undermine the team.
Hamilton, who won the race in Abu Dhabi
but lost his title to Rosberg, slowed the pace
deliberately in a bid to back his team mate
into a position where rivals could overtake the
German, who needed to finish on the podium.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, a compatriot of
Rosberg, described the tactics as ‘dirty tricks’.
Wolff would no t go that far, at least openly,
but he recognised Hamilton had ignored clear
top-level instructions issued by technical head
Paddy Lowe to speed up.
He added that while that could be
understood in the circumstances, it was also a
road that led to chaos.
“Undermining a structure in public means
you are putting yourself before the team. It is
very simple. Anarchy does not work in any team
and in any company,” he said.
“The other half (of me) says it was his only
chance of winning the championship… and
maybe you cannot demand of a racing driver
that is one of the best, if not the best, to comply
in a situation where his instincts cannot make
him.
“It is about finding a solution as to how to
solve that in the future because a precedent
has been set,” added the Austrian. “Let me
sleep overnight and come up with a solution.”