Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says there’s no guarantee Lewis Hamilton will return to Formula 1 racing in 2022.
Wolff said this week the British driver remains in great pain about the controversial season finale in Abu Dhabi and is even unlikely to “ever” get over what happened. The Mercedes boss also doubled down once more in his criticism of race officials. He said Hamilton had been treated as nothing more than a “sitting duck” by race director Michael Masi.
Masi during Sunday’s season finale took the controversial decision to call a final lap shoot-out between Hamilton and Red Bull rival Max Verstappen. That fateful decision led to Verstappen, who had been on freshly fitted tyres at the time, overtaking Hamilton during the final throes of the race.
Wolff said earlier this week digesting what happened in Sunday will likely take a very long time for everybody involved. He said he and Hamilton are both “disillusioned” following Sunday’s loss. He said while the stopwatch never lies, it risks becoming completely irrelevant in the face of a lack of fairness and authenticity in sport. Wolff said Sunday saw Mercedes exposed to random and haphazard decision-making, and that this is something that poses a real risk of fans and drivers alike falling out of love with the sport.
According to Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, Mercedes has no ground for appealing Sunday’s result. Horner said the race director’s determination for getting the race going (again) has been a clear mandate in the world of F1 racing for many years.
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