"While we’re going to honour and celebrate the World Championship-winning driver you need to respect that for the other guy it’s going to be a very difficult day in his life," says team boss Toto Wolff
Monday 24 November 2014 15:21, UK
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff has revealed the team already have a plan in place for how best to deal with the inevitable contrasting emotions of their two drivers at the end of Sunday’s title-deciding Abu Dhabi GP.
Having already clinched their first-ever Constructors’ Championship, Mercedes are guaranteed to end their dominant 2014 season with a title double given Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are the only two drivers in contention for the drivers’ crown at this weekend's finale.
With one of his two drivers therefore guaranteed to end Sunday evening as World Champion, and the other a massively disappointed runner-up, Wolff told Sky Sports News HQ: “We have thought about this situation for a long time.
“It’s going to be a great day for one of the drivers and it’s going to be a very difficult for one of them. As a team, we must remain neutral and there is a plan in place for how we want to handle this situation.”
Elaborating in Friday’s team bosses’ press conference, Wolff added that while the team will make sure they properly mark the new champion’s achievements, they will generally try and keep things on an even keel.
“They [the drivers] are valuable members of the team, we are going to continue with them next year, and while we’re going to honour and celebrate the World Championship-winning driver you need to respect that for the other guy it’s going to be a very difficult day in his life, “ the Mercedes Executive Director added.
“This is why we would like to maintain our role of being fairly neutral in that situation.”
With Mercedes enjoying a particularly dominant Friday relative to the rest of the field, Hamilton and Rosberg are likely to again be pitted against each other in a private duel for the race victory on Sunday.
But despite the added pressure of a final-round championship showdown, Wolff insists the team’s management won’t need to sit them both down together on race-day morning.
“At that stage the team doesn’t need to interfere anymore in the relationship between the two of them. It’s down to them,” the Austrian said.
“We need to give them the best car so they can fight it out on track. It makes no sense to pretend [there is] a schmoozing environment – they are out there to win the World Championship. It is man against man. The tension is there but all in a respectful manner.”
