Mercedes chief Toto Wolff has criticised Lewis Hamilton for exerting pressure on him to secure a new driver for 2025.
In February, Hamilton, who clinched six of his seven world titles with the Silver Arrows, surprised the F1 community by announcing his move to Ferrari at the conclusion of the ongoing season.
Wolff himself acknowledged being caught off guard by the development, as the 38-year-old chose to depart a year before his contract with Mercedes concludes. With no replacement identified, the Austrian team principal is closely monitoring driver developments, with several candidates potentially in contention.
Despite being in Bahrain for the opening Grand Prix weekend of the season, Wolff asserted that he would not rush into making a decision.“I'm in no hurry to decide on driver,” he said. “I’ve been rushed in a hurry by Lewis. So I'll just stand around and kind of take it easy and evaluate the market.”
The performance of his team in the Middle East will once again have underscored the need for Wolff to make the right recruitment choices. Mercedes, once again, found themselves significantly trailing behind the frontrunners Red Bull, with George Russell and Hamilton struggling in fifth and seventh places respectively.
In fact, the likelihood of a triumphant conclusion for the British icon at the team he joined in 2013 already seems distant. This is true even though he insisted that he was in the best possible condition when questioned about his ongoing challenges.
"I personally feel great, physically I feel great so winter training has worked," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 after the Grand Prix. “We probably feel a bit of disappointment within the team, I'm not sure about everyone else.
"I was definitely hoping that we would be better this weekend then we were, but it was a tough race, it was very close with everybody and degradation is high with the car. There is plenty of areas we can improve.”