London - While one of his Mercedes bosses was delivering a second warning about his behaviour within a week, Lewis Hamilton was posting a bizarre selfie video with his other boss, in which he boasted: “We’ve had lots of vodka.”
Hamilton, the triple world champion, might have been expected at the Autosport Awards at London’s Grosvenor House hotel, where he won two of the leading awards in his absence.
But rather than attend Sunday’s black-tie dinner, Hamilton appeared on social media with Mercedes chairman Niki Lauda.
“We are three-time world champions,” says Hamilton, who appears to slur. Lauda says: “Yes, we are.” Hamilton adds: “Yes, we are, and we’ve had lots of vodka.”
Hamilton’s no-show at the Autosport Awards came 20 years after he went up at the same event, as a 10-year-old karting starlet, to ask McLaren’s Ron Dennis for a drive. Back at Sunday’s dinner, team principal Toto Wolff said: “It’s very important to keep the spirit within the team, and the competition between Nico (Rosberg) and Lewis has been very fierce, very competitive at times.
THEY CAN’T BE FRIENDS
“It’s understandable because they are fighting each other in a car that is capable of winning the championship. The guy in the other car cannot be your friend, but we need to be careful that it doesn’t spill over on both sides of the garage.”
It is telling that Wolff felt the need to make the same sort of comment again, a few days after having told Hamilton and Rosberg that he wanted ‘nice guys’ in the team, warning he could sack either if they transgressed beyond a certain point of fair play.
A Mercedes spokesman said the video of Hamilton came from an official team party on Saturday night and that the driver missed the awards because he had a long-standing commitment at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington DC.
But patience at his off-track behaviour is wearing thin within the Mercedes boardroom in Stuttgart since he started to publicise his new-found love of the bottle.
Although Hamilton is in no imminent danger of the sack, having won two successive titles for the team, he could be vulnerable if his form dips at the start of next season and he is still filling social media with updates about his partying.
Daily Mail