16/07/2017
NEWS STORY
As expected, Lewis Hamilton was centre of attention at Thursday's FIA press conference at Silverstone. Once again, the Briton was in the headlines for the wrong reasons, many feeling it was wrong of the Mercedes driver to be the only F1 driver missing from Wednesday's event, opting instead for a two-day holiday in the Greek Islands.
Though there was no public criticism of Hamilton's decision, both Mercedes and FOM remained silent, some fans at the event booed when Hamilton's name was mentioned, a move the media seized upon.
Hamilton staunchly defended his decision, and in taking pole position by over half-a-second gave his fans what they really want, pole for his home race.
Though not exactly leaping to his driver's defence, three days after the London no-show, Toto Wolff hit out at those who criticised Hamilton, insisting that his absence from the event had been agreed in advance and that it was not a deliberate snub aimed at the team for recent performance issues or talk of Sebastian Vettel agreeing a deal with the team - a rumour not helped by the revelation that Wolff attended the German's recent birthday party.
"We had a chat at the beginning of the week whether it was good or not good to go to the event," Wolff told reporters. "After five years together I think the most important thing is that he feels at ease because that is how he extracts performance on race weekends.
"Questioning whether a three-time world champion, that has just broken Ayrton Senna's pole record and is going to beat Schumacher's record, understands how he should prepare himself is an insult," he continued. "I give him freedom to organise his days in a way he wants. If he feels that staying away from a Formula One environment, being with his friends and so on helps him to extract performance in Silverstone then so be it."
Describing the criticism from the media and those within the sport, including Christian Horner, as "mischief", he said: "He took a decision for his championship and the way he's been treated in certain media is wrong and not fair. Before his home race at Silverstone, after rough weekends in Austria and Baku, to be treating the local superstar and hero in that way is absolutely against how I see things."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Silverstone, here.