The curtain has just dropped over the Formula 1 season, after the race in Abu Dhabi and thunder has already hit the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS paradise. World champions for the third time in a row, the Mercedes people are finding reasons for war. Lewis Hamilton was the man who got the executives angry all over again, after refusing to drive faster! Boss Toto Wolff is considering a fine and even a suspension!
For the past few laps of the race in the United Arab Emirates, Lewis Hamilton slowed down. “Pick up your pace”, was the order he got from the Executive Director Technical Paddy Lowe. Lewis said he did not care whether he lost the race or won it, as long he failed to become a world champion. Just a second behind him, Nico Rosberg had Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on his tail.
Lewis may be suspected of making his own strategy in the race: slowing down teammate Nico, so the other drivers would go past him. If the German finished in the fourth spot, the Brit would have become a world champion for the fourth time in a row.
“Anarchy does not work in any team! He listened to Christian’s instructions, maybe he wants to drive for Christian”, said Mercedes-AMG boss, Toto Wolff, after the Red Bull boss had suggested to Lewis to let his drivers, Verstappen and Ricciardo, help him become world champion. “I am in a schizophrenic situation”, Wolff joked after the race.
Exhausted after the unbelievable season finale, Rosberg was still in the mood to joke with the reporters in Abu Dhabi: “Of all days, I thought today I wasn’t going to see him and there he was again!”, he said about Max Verstappen who was 16th after the first corner. Rosberg says that his most intense moment ever in his Formula 1 car was the moment he passed the Dutch, after his team told him it was a critical moment to pass. Watch the following video to hear what his wife, Vivian, told him through the radio communication:
