Former team boss Kolles takes aim at Stroll with wacky claim

The once F1 team boss and wannabe power player Colin Kolles is a man on a mission, a mission to portray anything or anybody even remotely associated with his friend-turned-foe Toto Wolff in an unfavourable manner, and his latest hatchet job targets Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll.

There is no love lost between Wolff and Kolles, a dissension rooted - according to the latter - in the Mercedes boss reneging on a deal the two had once supposedly put together that should have seen Kolles take the helm of Williams in 2013 following Wolff's departure from the Grove-based outfit as a director to take over the management of the Mercedes team.

Unsurprisingly, that deal never materialized. Perhaps because the Williams family doubted, and rightly so, the competency of Kolles whose claim to fame in F1 at that point included a three-year tenure as managing director of Midland-Spyker-Force India, and a stint as team boss at HRT.

In July 2013, it emerged that Kolles had tried to blackmail Wolff after he had allegedly recorded the Austrian speaking negatively about the Mercedes F1 Team's management. The two men reportedly settled the matter privately, but years later Kolles' grudge is obviously still going strong.

Last month, the 53-year-old revived his lingering resentment out of the blue, calling Wolff, a close friend of Aston Martin executive chairman Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian billionaire's "lap dog".

Kolles, who claims that he was instrumental in getting Wolff involved in F1 by introducing him to Bernie Ecclestone in 2009, also belittled Wolff's success at Mercedes, insisting the team was set on its winning course by Ross Brawn before Wolff took over the Brackley squad's running in 2013.

Weeks after his scathing attack on the Austrian, a raging Kolles took out his axe this week for another hatched job, this time offering Germany's Sport1 a slam piece on Stroll Sr.

Kolles' vacuous claim? That the entire Aston Martin team is "demoralized" under Stroll's leadership, because the Canadian had forced through in 2019, against the will of his Racing Point engineers, the concept of the "pink Mercedes".

• Read also: Stroll credits father's 'incredible vision' for team's transformation

"In the past, the engineers were allowed to develop themselves there," Kolles told Sport1.

"They had little budget, they were very young and efficient, very motivated and in some cases also very innovative. Since Stroll has been in charge, things have changed. And I mean everything.

"The engineers actually wanted to build a different car – one with a heavily sloping rear like the Red Bull – because the team had made its cars according to this philosophy for years.

"But Stroll only wanted a copy of the Mercedes because that seemed like the easiest way for him to achieve his goals. It is my way or no way – that’s Stroll’s mentality.

"He bought everything from Wolff."

Kolles' silly claims can easily be debunked by revisiting last year's statements by the very competent Andy Green, Force India/Aston Martin's technical director, who repeatedly made clear at the outset of 2020 that the team's low-rake RP20 was "the car we have always wanted to build".

Aston Martin has admittedly struggled this season with its low-rake 2021 contender which has been impacted by this year's aero changes more significantly than its rivals' high-rake designs.

"The engineers can’t do anything with a car they didn’t want at all," added the spiteful Kolles. "They are now extremely demoralised and hanging in the air. There is a lot of displeasure in that team now."

If a sense of displeasure currently lingers at Team Silverstone, it's likely directed at Kolles himself and his daft claims, assuming they have any bearing at all on Aston's crews, which is doubtful.

In the words of the great Mark Twain, "Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference!"

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