Toto Wolff has revealed he decided to fire both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg after they crashed in Barcelona, but backed out as he could not decide who was to blame.<\/p>\n
In the midst of a heated intra-team battle, the 2016 title rivals collided at the start of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, which led to crisis talks within the Mercedes Formula One Team.<\/p>\n
Toto Wolff \u2018fired\u2019 Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg<\/p>\n
Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to your favourites list for news you can trust<\/p>\n Rosberg was the defending race winner and entered the round with a forty-three-point lead over teammate Hamilton in the Drivers\u2019 Championship. <\/p>\n Hamilton started from pole position having beaten Rosberg by a quarter of a second in qualifying.<\/p>\n But it was Rosberg who made the better start, passing Hamilton into Turn 1. Hamilton tried to fight back at Turn 3, but as Rosberg defended his position, Hamilton went off track, spun and the two collided at Turn 4. Both were out of the race.<\/p>\n Having seen a certain one-two become a double DNF, team principal Wolff was left furious at the actions of his drivers.<\/p>\n Speaking to The Athletic<\/a>, Wolff has now revealed that he had decided to fire them both, going as far as asking the Mercedes CEO to sign off on it.<\/p>\n \u201cI have never had any fear of making that very clear. In 2016, Rosberg and Hamilton crashed, and then they crashed again. So I fired them.<\/p>\n \u201cI called my chief executive officer, Dieter Zetsche, and said, \u2018Listen, you need to sign something.\u2019 And he called me back and said \u2018You\u2019re making both drivers redundant?\u2019<\/p>\n F1 records<\/p>\n F1 records: The drivers with the longest points-scoring streaks in history<\/a><\/p>\n F1 race wins: Which drivers have the highest win totals in F1 history?<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnd I said, \u2018Yeah, because otherwise they won\u2019t understand how important it is to the interest of the brand and the team above their own.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cIt was their personal rivalry that took over. And from a healthy competition, it went to a rivalry and it became animosity. And that\u2019s just not something I would allow in the organization, and based on these factors, we sent them an email and said, \u201cAt the moment, you\u2019re not part of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn Wednesday, we called them and said, \u201cCome in tomorrow,\u201d and I said, \u201cMy problem is that I don\u2019t know whose fault it was.\u201d Because it\u2019s nuanced. Like everything in life, it\u2019s never 100 percent wrong. It may be 50-50. It might be 51-49. It\u2019d be 70-30. And I can\u2019t judge. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd so what I said to them is that if it happens again, one has to go, and I may make a mistake. I may send the wrong one away.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who need to repay their mortgages who work in the (Mercedes) factories, what do they think? That you two crash into each other because you don\u2019t like each other? And it directly affects the lives of two and a half thousand people. <\/p>\n \u201cWho do you think you are? And that\u2019s an important understanding that you need to have with your drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, Wolff\u2019s decision was made for him as Rosberg opted to retire having bested Hamilton for the 2016 crown.<\/p>\n The German announced just five days after the season finale that he was done, retiring at age 31.<\/p>\n Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n