Don Kennedy: Lewis Hamilton takes stab at choice of venue for FIA awards

Lewis Hamilton may be fashionable, but his criticism of the FIA at its annual gala wasn’t. Photo / Don Kennedy

Baku was somewhat controversially chosen as the venue for the annual FIA awards, if you accept the comments of Lewis Hamilton.

The seven-time world champion, who was required to attend the awards as the third-placed driver in this year’s championship, questioned why the recipients had to travel to Baku when the FIA is based in Paris.

Although it is compulsory for the first three drivers to attend the gala event, that protocol wasn’t observed by Hamilton when he was controversially beaten by Max Verstappen in the 2021 championship.

The former FIA race director, Michael Masi, had allowed only the five lapped cars between race leader Hamilton and Verstappen to un-lap themselves for a last-lap shootout, won by Verstappen because he had fresher tyres. He passed Hamilton on the last lap to claim his first title and deny an eighth title for Hamilton.

As a protest, Hamilton refused to attend the prize-giving gala in Paris. He faced a €50,000 fine, but convinced FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem it was better he donated that amount to help get disadvantaged youth into motorsport.

In 2022, Hamilton was only sixth in the championship, so he wasn’t obliged to turn up for the awards ceremony.

This time he has somewhat reluctantly attended, it seems, and used it as a platform to criticise the governing body that sets the rules and regulation for the sport that has made him a substantial fortune, estimated to be $285 million.

His criticism began with the venue itself, and once there, he took the opportunity to question why the FIA had begun, but then quickly shut down, an investigation into the possible sharing of confidential information between Hamilton’s Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and his wife Susie, who is the managing director of the F1 Academy, the all-female series run by Fom (Formula One Management).

The investigation was started because an apparent representative from one of the 10 teams that race in F1 had alleged Wolff had made a comment that could only have come from information from a member of Fom personnel.

In other words, Susie Wolff was divulging confidential information to her husband, potentially gaining his Mercedes team an advantage in terms of intellectual property. The allegations were strenuously denied by the Wolffs. More on that later.

Of the Baku venue, Hamilton had this to say: “Whilst I really like Baku - it’s a beautiful place - there are questions in my mind [about] whether the FIA is really thinking about sustainability, because so many people flew out here.”

“The FIA is in Paris, and it just would have been easier to stay there,” he added.

“But it’s a beautiful arena, and it’s a night [when] we all get to come together and celebrate all the achievements of the great people working in the sport, all the amazing drivers that I wouldn’t get to see during the year,” he noted, perhaps to redeem himself after being critical of the event in the first instance.

Hamilton also had some praise for his rivals at Red Bull.

“For everyone, it has been a very, very long season, and [I’m] very much looking forward to the winter break,” he said at the gala.

“We’re working very, very hard on making sure we come back strong next year. I must say, a big congratulations to Red Bull, Verstappen and Checo [Perez] - they’ve done an incredible job this year. Max Verstappen was faultless. Max and all of his team raised the bar, and we have a lot of work to close that gap, but I truly believe we can close that gap.”

Hamilton then launched his attack on the FIA for its aborted investigation into the alleged sharing of information between Toto Wolff and his wife Susie.

“It’s been a challenging week, a disappointing week, really - to see the governing body of our sport sought to question the integrity of one of the most incredible female leaders we’ve ever had in our sport in Susie Wolff without questioning, without any evidence, and then just said ‘sorry’ at the end. That’s just unacceptable.”

The investigation was quickly cut short because almost identical statements from all 10 teams confirmed to the FIA nobody from those teams had made a complaint. That forced the FIA to issue its own statement which said it was satisfied “Fom’s compliance management system is robust enough to prevent any unauthorised disclosure of confidential information”.

It might have ended there, but Susie Wolff was not going to allow the FIA that luxury, while Toto brought in his lawyers.

“When I saw the statement issued by the FIA yesterday, my first reaction was, ‘Is that it?’ Susie Wolff said. “For two days, insinuations have been made about my integrity in public and through background briefings, but nobody from the FIA has spoken to me directly.”

“I might have been collateral damage in an unsuccessful attempt on somebody or the target of a failed attempt to discredit me personally, but I’ve worked too hard to have my reputation called into question by an unfounded press release.”

“What happened this week is simply not good enough. As a sport, we must demand, and we deserve, better.”

Toto Wolff has confirmed Mercedes will look at exploring their legal options regarding the investigation.

“We understand that there is significant media interest in the events of this work,” he said in a statement. “We await full transparency about what took place and why, and have expressly reserved all legal rights.”

The awards saga wasn’t completely over for Hamilton and Mercedes. After the event, a fan posted a picture on social media seemingly with Hamilton’s third-place award, claiming he had gifted it to him.

“Hello, I was at the gala yesterday. Lewis Hamilton gave me the award and left. I have the prize at home now,” he wrote.

It may not have been embarrassing for Hamilton to criticise the FIA, firstly for the venue, and then for what he believes they did to his boss’ wife. But to have it said he left the award behind at the venue, with the inference being he didn’t give a toss about receiving a trophy for finishing third, was embarrassing, and his Mercedes team felt compelled to provide an explanation.

“Immediately after leaving the stage, and as he has done at previous prize-givings, Lewis accepted the offer from officials for the trophy to be sent to the team and therefore left it in their care. We can confirm he did not give the trophy to anyone as a gift,” the statement said.

Why he couldn’t have just taken it with him, given a limo or team vehicle likely took him to and from the venue, we may never know. But if he did leave it with officials, they did a lousy job in taking care of it, because the fan, named Nihad Nesiri, posted photos on social media of himself seemingly in possession of it.

If it wasn’t given to him, then presumably he stole it. The fan, after reading the Mercedes statement, then put up a further post saying it was a misunderstanding between him and Lewis. He claimed he asked Lewis if he could take it, and Lewis said “yes”, but that maybe Lewis thought he was the FIA official in charge of the award. Will the FIA get blamed for that as well? The FIA is investigating, so hopefully that inquiry will have a better ending than the Wolff saga!

We can end on a happy note though, as a photo taken at Abu Dhabi suggests Toto Wolff and Red Bull boss Christian Horner are actually great mates. Pictures don’t lie, they say.

Alas, that’s not quite the case, as Horner explained why they were both laughing.

“It’s an amusing moment because I think my wife [Geri Halliwell-Horner, the former Spice Girl] had just smacked his bum so hard,” Horner said. “I think it took him by surprise. You probably can’t see my clenched fist - that is out of shot there!“ Horner joked.

“It’s been a long season and there has to be competition on the track, but there still has to be respect. I have respect, obviously, of course, for everything that he’s done and achieved in the sport.”

Wolff dismissed the notion they could be friends.

“Friends? The last handshake might have been in 2021 before the last race,” Wolff said. “But you have to recognise the performance of your competitor.”