21/10/2016
NEWS STORY
Mercedes boss believes Lewis Hamilton's Suzuka "antics" were due to pressure.
Though tense, Thursday's FIA press conference, where Lewis Hamilton faced the media for an unprecedented second consecutive race weekend, was not the bloodbath many predicted.
The Briton, looking, composed, attentive and studious, was charm itself as certain sections of the (British) media tried to goad him.
"You've taken to blocking journalists on Twitter," said the man from The Sun. "Not sure your reasons why, we've been fairly supportive of you during your early career. I wondered why."
"That's something that's just been brought to me," replied Hamilton. "I don't actually manage every single part of my social media. I have a couple of other people that do.
"Our general approach is that if you see something, see someone generally talking smack then you kind of cut it," he continued. "
"I'd flown back from Asia and then I got a message afterwards... I don't know who has been blocked or not... I don't have any particular feeling for it... I don't have a lot of time to go online and do that. I don't think it was just media. It was a lot of people got... I think it was a blocking-spree. I don't even have... if you look at my phone I don't even have the app, I don't really do my Tweets. So..."
In a follow up, asked how involved he is in his own social media accounts, Hamilton revealed: "There's obviously several platforms so I'm not consciously doing every single platform all the time so I still have a lot of people who help me because it's quite a big job."
Asked if this meant that the opinions expressed are not his own, he replied: "Every single thing that's said is generally... I can either send it if I've not got it... for example time to post it or if it's not the right time of course I can write it, send it and one of my team will post it when it's the right time."
Naturally, Friday was Wolff's turn to face the media, a media keen to know why Hamilton had accused it of "disrespect" in Japan, while at the same time walking out of press conferences, taking to Snapchat during said media calls and even claiming he would not talk to sections of the media again.
"Generally, all of us, we under-estimate the pressure that is on these guys," said the Austrian. "It's a couple of races towards the end of the season, there is all to win and all to lose and I guess that after Malaysia, where he was in the lead, 25 points to take, the engine blew up.
"That was a very difficult situation for him to cope with," he continued. "As cool as someone might seem to be outside, inside it kind of eats you up and maybe that's why the weekend in Suzuka was a bit difficult for him emotionally, but he knows exactly that there's a job to be done in the car and there's a job to be done outside the car and it just needs small impulse, not more, and this is what happened."
Asked if the Briton had been the subject of 'a talking to', Wolff said: "We had a couple of conversations but it was generally about how things can be improved. It was not a headmaster kind of discussion."
With that voice Toto, every talk is a "headmaster kind of discussion".
Check out our Friday gallery from Austin, here.