Toto Wolff once asked Lewis Hamilton’s mechanic to ‘leave’ after refusing Mercedes request

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Toto Wolff once asked one of Lewis Hamilton’s mechanics to leave Mercedes after refusing a strict request. 

Wolff, 54, is one of the most respected figures in the Formula 1 paddock, having led the Mercedes team since 2013.

Under the Austrian’s leadership, Mercedes won eight consecutive constructors’ titles from 2014 to 2021.

In addition, Hamilton won six world championships as a Mercedes driver, with Nico Rosberg winning one.

2016 was a year that will forever be remembered, as Rosberg and Hamilton went head-to-head for the title.

The childhood friends’ relationship turned sour with the F1 crown on the line, forcing Wolff to take matters into his own hands.

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Toto Wolff reveals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg got ‘too competitive’ in 2016

As revealed in Sky Sports reporter Rachel Brookes’ new book, ‘F1 Racing Drive’, the atmosphere inside Mercedes got so ‘toxic’ that Wolff decided to change the teams around, by swapping Hamilton and Rosberg’s mechanics and engineers. 

Brookes wrote: “Toto Wolff explained to me why he made the decision. I saw that the two sides of the garages were starting to go beyond the rivalry and were getting too competitive.

“I tried to make the point by saying to the mechanics you are working for me, they would say I’m working for Lewis, or I’m working for Nico.

“No, this is a misunderstanding; they are not paying the bills. I won’t allow that. You are working for the team; you are a Mercedes person.

“I think it’s very dysfunctional for the mindset of the team and for the well-being of all of us that, in secret, there were these Chinese whispers in the background, little chats open on computer screens.”

READ MORE: Mercedes had to ‘intervene’ when Lewis Hamilton kept losing weight to beat Nico Rosberg

Toto Wolff asked Lewis Hamilton’s mechanic to ‘leave’ after refusing Mercedes request

With tension already sky high between the two garages, Wolff went on to reveal that Hamilton’s ‘number one’ initially refused to move over and work on Rosberg‘s car.

As a result, Wolff decided to remind him who the real boss was and told him to consider his future.

He continued: “It wasn’t even the drivers that created that; it was some of the mechanics and engineers who contributed strongly to it, so I thought, I’m going to shake it up.

“Particularly, Lewis’ number one, I put him on the other car, and he hated it. He said, I’m not going on that car, and I said, well, you might as well leave the team, then we switched everyone, and for Lewis, it was a problem.

“Because the number one mechanic is the one right in front of you, and suddenly that’s the enemy, then the mechanics and the engineers understood it was a Mercedes thing.

“And I said, you are going to be reminded as an engineer, you work for the Mercedes F1 team, which won a championship and not for the driver.”