F1 boss Toto Wolff reveals he temporarily 'fired' Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes

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Lewis Hamilton

Toto Wolff reveals he temporarily 'fired' Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes

Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton worked together between 2013-2024

Originally written by Sam Cook. This version is a translation.

Sunday 12 April 2026 23:00

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff has suggested that he once fired both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

In 2014, 2015 and 2016, Hamilton and Mercedes team-mate Rosberg were involved in three fierce championship battles, with Hamilton winning two of those and Rosberg one, before Hamilton then went on to add four more titles consecutively in the seasons after.

The 2016 season was arguably when their fierce rivalry threatened to boil over, with a number of incidents between the pair.

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The Spanish Grand Prix that season saw Hamilton and Rosberg crash into each other and out of the race, leaving Mercedes with zero points as Max Verstappen won on his Red Bull debut.

Now, Wolff has revealed how, after that race, he temporarily fired both Hamilton and Rosberg in order to make them think about their actions.

"In 2016, Rosberg and Hamilton crashed, and then they crashed agaim," Wolff told The Athletic. "So I fired them. I called my chief executive officer, Dieter Zetsche, and said, 'Listen, you need to sign something.' And he called me back and said, 'You’re making both drivers redundant?' And I said, 'Yeah, because otherwise they won’t understand how important it is to the interest of the brand and the team above their own.'

"On Wednesday, we called them and said, 'Come in tomorrow,' and I said, 'My problem is that I don’t know whose fault it was.' Because it’s nuanced. Like everything in life, it’s never 100 percent wrong. It may be 50-50. It might be 51-49. It’d be 70-30. And I can’t judge. And 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.

"'People who need to repay their mortgages who work in the factories, what do they think? That you two crash into each other because you don’t like each other? And it directly affects the lives of two and a half thousand people. Who do you think you are?' And that’s an important understanding that you need to have with your drivers."

Hamilton and Rosberg part ways

While both drivers were reinstated, Wolff did not have to wait long until the matter was taken out of Mercedes hands anyway.

After becoming 2016 world champion, Rosberg opted to retire from the sport with immediate effect, leaving Wolff and Mercedes looking for another driver to partner Hamilton.

Valtteri Bottas stepped into the seat for the 2017 season onwards, and had a much more harmonious relationship with Hamilton, allowing the team to claim the next five constructors' championship titles.

Hamilton and Rosberg's relationship remained frayed for a while, but German legend Rosberg revealed a few years ago that they had made up and were friends again, just like they had been during their junior racing days.

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F1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Toto Wolff Nico Rosberg