Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has encouraged Lewis Hamilton to express polarising opinions on his social media channels after his driver crticised Sky Sports’ broadcast of the German Grand Prix in an Instagram post.
Having watched a replay of his race victory at Hockenheim, Hamilton took to Instagram on Monday to criticise Sky Sports’ coverage before deleting the post soon after.
Sky Sports’ analysis — some of which airs on ESPN’s coverage of Formula One in the U.S.A. — features punditry from former racing drivers Damon Hill, Martin Brundle and Paul di Resta as well as Hamilton’s ex-Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg. It’s not clear which part of the broadcast offended Hamilton, but he said he forgave the pundits regardless of the comments.
“I never get to watch the races but just got home and watching Sky,” Hamilton wrote. “I find it amusing listening to ex-drivers commentating, not a single one of them could find a good word to say. Whatever the reason is, it’s OK I forgive you.
“Positivity and love wins always and no matter what words you use to try and undermine me. I started 14th today and finished first. God is good all the time.”
Throughout his career Hamilton has been outspoken on social media and following Saturday’s qualifying session at Hockenheim quoted Nelson Mandella in response to his critics. Wolff thinks F1 needs characters like Hamilton and says he encourages his driver not to delete social media posts just because they split opinion.
“I had a conversation with him about it on Sunday night and I think it is great that someone wears his heart on his sleeve,” Wolff said. “He says things likes he means them. We are humans and have emotions and are influenced by what others say and what they say and you take things personally.
“I take things personally sometimes when perhaps I shouldn’t care what the guy says, whose opinion is not relevant to me or if it’s someone that I value I should respect that his opinion is different to mine. But that is very hard to do on a Sunday evening after an exhausting rollercoaster ride of a weekend.
“I actually encouraged him to leave all that stuff online and speak his mind. It is what we need. We need to create stories. We need controversies. We need polarising stances. We don’t want to have streamlined everything.
“What would we talk about if we would not have topics that create controversy?”
Wolff believes part of the reason Hamilton has been so successful in F1 is because he is so emotionally invested in what he does.
“He’s that exceptional sport star because he has fine senses and sensitivity. Sometimes when you let your guard down and maybe such a moment is like on Sunday when you win a race you did not expect to win and you let your guard down, and then you find yourself at home exuberant and unable to sleep and you put on the TV and hear a commentator saying negative stuff, that can get to you.
“But that makes him that special individual that we talk about all the time and is able to have performance like he had in the rain in Germany. I mean, his performance when it started to get wet, how much faster was he? Four seconds a lap, albeit with a better tyre, but it was unbelievable. He could have won the race against Vettel without Vettel going off.”