F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Hamilton and Bottas lift the lid on 'angry' Wolff

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas have given a behind the scenes glimpse of life at Brackley by revealing the moments when team principal Toto Wolff blew his top with them.

"The angriest I've ever seen Toto was probably one of the times Nico and I crashed into each other," Hamilton said in a video on the Mercedes YouTube channel, recalling an incident in Spain in 2016.

Hamilton and his then-team mate Nico Rosberg had been running first and second at the start of the race when they collided and took each other out, in a season that came increasingly marked by antagonism between the pair.

Read also: Wolff says team had no strategy to help frustrated Bottas

"Probably Barcelona was the angriest he ever got," Hamilton acknowledged, adding that Wolff had been fuming after the self-inflicted double DNF.

"He had bald patches - he had pulled out of his hair, and he had to get it turfed to grow it back!" Hamilton joked.

Rosberg went on to win the title that season by five points from Hamilton, only to retire days after the final race. Bottas was drafted in as his replacement, but he too hasn't always been in Wolff's good books.

"He wasn't so happy at Germany 2019, after I crashed at turn 1," Bottas said of a mistake in tricky conditions at Hockenheim which spun him out of a potential fourth place with just seven laps to go.

"We didn't get any points for the team, and when I crashed I was at least on to get some points," Bottas admitted.

It was made worse by the fact that Mercedes were firmly in the spotlight that weekend, running a special livery and dressed in traditional German costumes to mark the manufacturer's 125th anniversary.

On top of that, the Netflix documentary team filming Drive to Survive was focussed on Mercedes for their home race, meaning that the team's reaction to Bottas' accident was captured on film.

"I shunted and we were all wearing these special outfits." Bottas recalled. "I remember [Toto] saying after the race that this was the last time we were going to 'play carnival' at the race weekend!"

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.