Wolff ‘fired’ Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg claim addressed by Rosberg

Nico Rosberg acknowledged that a discussion between Toto Wolff and then Mercedes chief Dieter Zetsche took place, but cast doubt over the idea that he and Lewis Hamilton would have been fired.

Wolff revealed earlier this year that he was prepared to fire both drivers in 2016 as their title rivalry reached boiling point but instead made Rosberg and Hamilton sign a contract which made them liable for covering the costs of their crash damage.

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg ‘fired’ claim addressed

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Wolff revealed in an interview with The Athletic that he had decided to fire both Hamilton and Rosberg after they crashed at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.

He went as far as asking the Mercedes CEO to sign off on it, but backed out as he could not decide who was to blame.

Rosberg, speaking via the High Performance Podcast, recalled the Wolff fury which he and Hamilton faced but suggested that a one-race suspension would have been a more likely outcome.

“He came in hard. He was like, ‘What the hell are you guys doing out there?’

“Because we handed the win to Red Bull, of course. That’s the worst thing you can do, hand the win to the fierce enemy, Red Bull. That’s the most horrible thing. So, Toto was not happy with that.”

Asked if Wolff had told them they were fired, Rosberg countered: “It never came to that fired thing, no.

“But I know he actually had internal discussions with the big boss, Dieter Zetsche.”

Asked if that was about firing them both, Rosberg continued: “About taking that step as a… I don’t think it was… probably a suspension or something, would have been a first step, for a race, something like that.

“So, there was actually that conversation behind closed doors. It never came to us. That’s pretty crazy.”

Rosberg confirmed that he “didn’t hear” about that discussion at the time, though did recount the contract he was made to sign.

“Toto put a contract on the table that we had to sign, and it was 50/50 of the damage I had to pay myself,” said Rosberg.

“It didn’t matter whose fault it was. So, even if it was 90 per cent Lewis’s fault, I had to pay 50/50 of the actual damage we caused.

“So, one of the crashes I had to pay $360,000, so that definitely calmed us down. That was expensive. That was not really a fun exercise. So one crash was $360,000.

“So that was one thing he did, contract on the table.”

The $360,000 bill in question was that infamous Turn 3 crash in Barcelona. With Hamilton footing the same bill, it meant an overall pay-out of $720,000 between the Mercedes teammates.

Rosberg also highlighted an area where Mercedes, to his mind, needed to do a better job in handling this volatile rivalry.

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“One thing that they could have done better, the most important thing is a lot of communicating, preparing for every possible scenario as best you can,” said Rosberg, “and the team also could have done… but it’s hard to predict all these things. You can’t predict that there’s going to be such wheel-to-wheel incidents with teammates.

“But they could have made more of an effort, really laying out exactly whose fault it is in what different situation.

“We did a good job then in doing more and more of that. So it was really like all the way to the details, like if your tyre is there, then it’s the inside car, his corner, but if you’re blah blah blah. So we really went to the extent of every single detail.

“At least you have guidelines that you can then refer to afterwards. Because if you have a crash, and it’s a big, big, big fight behind those doors, because no one really knows who is at fault, then it really becomes difficult, because then people take sides, and feel unfairly treated, and that’s when it all spirals out of control completely.”

Rosberg ultimately beat Hamilton to the title. He retired in the days following the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

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