Lewis Hamilton’s two former bosses Ross Brawn and Ron Dennis, both giants of modern Formula One, dominate the buildup to the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday.
The former Mercedes team principal Brawn, the man who brought Hamilton to the Silver Arrows, says he left three years ago because he could not trust Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda. And Dennis’s future at McLaren, the team he built up to dominate the sport and where he then made a superstar of the prodigy Hamilton, is in doubt with speculation that his contract will not be renewed this year.
Meanwhile Hamilton himself will take part in Thursday’s official FIA press conference with drivers, the traditional launch of the race weekend. It was the Briton’s performance at this function before the last race in Japan two weeks ago, when he amused himself with Snapchat images of his fellow drivers, which upset many journalists.
Hamilton responded to criticism of his behaviour by walking out of a press conference two days later, raising question marks about his mental preparation for a race in which he once again made a poor start as his team-mate Nico Rosberg strengthened his grip on the F1 world drivers’ championship.
For once, however, Hamilton has been upstaged by others. Brawn, in his forthcoming book Total Competition, published by Simon & Schuster, explains the background to his departure from the team at the end of 2013. The man widely credited with the building of the current, dominating team, says: “What happened at Mercedes is that people were imposed on me who I couldn’t trust. I never really knew what they were trying to do. I mean Niki would tell me one thing, then I would hear he was saying something else.
“I was beginning to deal with people who I didn’t feel I could ultimately trust; people within the team, who had let me down already in terms of their approach. Then in early 2013, I discovered [the technical director] Paddy Lowe had been contracted to join the team and it had been signed off in Stuttgart. When I challenged Toto and Niki, they blamed each other. I met them to have it out with them. And they both pointed to each other …”
Brawn, 61, who has never returned to the sport despite a number of rumours in the past three years, adds: “I think one complication in all of that was Toto and Niki became shareholders, which was an interesting decision by Mercedes. I never really understood it.”
Mercedes have been contacted by the Guardian but chosen not to comment.
Meanwhile, Dennis, a man who has arguably done more for Formula One than any other single person, with the exception of Bernie Ecclestone, could be on his way out of the McLaren team he built to be the strongest in the world in the 1980s and early 90s. It has been a difficult few years for a team whose last victory came in 2012, and their reunion with Honda has not been a happy one; they were ninth in the championship last year and are running sixth this season.
According to Autosport, Dennis, 69, has been told by his board that he will not get a new contract when his current one expires at the end of the year. Dennis stepped down as team principal in 2009 but returned in 2014 as chief executive officer of the team. He owns 25% of the McLaren Group.
However, a McLaren spokesman said Dennis had no intention of stepping down from his role. He said: “In response to your question, Ron Dennis responded by stating categorically that he is not stepping down.
“Moreover, he remains contracted as chairman and chief executive officer of McLaren Technology Group, and he retains a 25% shareholding in the group – exactly equal to that of [the Saudi businessman] Mansour Ojjeh.”
