F1 News
Wolff saw 'statement drive of a world champion' from Hamilton
After spending more than a decade with Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton drove his final Grand Prix for the team in Abu Dhabi. The Briton finished in P4 after starting from P16. Team principal Toto Wolff could only praise the driver following the Abu Dhabi GP.
Following the Grand Prix, Wolff reflected on why this this Hamilton-Mercedes combination was so important. "Well, it's been 12 years. It's not only the longest driver-team relationship that the sport has ever seen, it’s also the longest relationship any sports team had with a player. It was also the longest relationship that we had personally with another person. Obviously that creates attachment, trust, and those values in this day and age are rare."
After finishing in fourth position and ahead of teammate George Russell. "I've always tried to be analytical and if all that would have been our way yesterday, I think that Lewis could have fought for the victory. But then on the other side, something he said to me, we’ve had so many wins and so much success, that these last few races, they don't change anything of how we feel about it."
"And [Hamilton] drove like a world champion today. From P16, making it slowly through the cars, and then played the long game, and then finishing fourth... That was a statement of a world champion," he added.
Future of Wolff and Hamilton
What's next for Hamilton and Wolff, given they will be working for rival teams. "When we said that we're going to work hard on maintaining the relationship, it's going to be fierce competition on the track, but if individuals want the relationship to continue beyond the competition, we will do so, we will still be doing our sports sessions where it was a competition and we tried to beat each other, we’ll have dinner together," the Austrian concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Estéban den Toom
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