#emailgate

[yesterdayiwrote]

hi! if its not too much trouble would you mind explaining merc emailgate or link to a post explaining it? saw it mentioned once or twice and i’ve been scrolling a while but can’t find anything more. cheers

Hey! So emailgate happened back in 2024. Lewis had announced he was leaving the team but had the whole season left with Mercedes, and his results were struggling in comparison to George's for the first half of the season.

His fans got very frustrated and the sabotage rumours started (lol history repeating itself), but on top of that, Lewis had made a few different comments in press pen interviews that didn't help matters (At monaco he made a comment along the lines of 'I won't be allowed to fight this year') and his fans ran with as 'proof' there absolutely was sabotage occurring. Its important to note there was literally nothing on the table at this point. Merc were kind of 3rd/4th fastest and absolutely not fighting for wins on pace, but the fans became convinced they were sabotaging Lewis out of spite for him leaving...whilst simultaneously arguing they'd pushed him out... and basically that they were prioritising George so he'd look good after a not so great 2023.

Lewis made a comment after one session that his tyres were "two or three degrees lower than they should have been" and so the fans became convinced that Mercedes were underheating his tyres, which could be dangerous and therefore by extension Mercedes were actually not just trying to sabotage him, they were trying to kill him.

This was all chugging along seemingly online until about Spain when one of the journalists asks Lewis in the press conference seemingly out of nowhere how he feels about the fact his fans are sending threats/general hate towards George and the team. He answers that he didn't know that was happening and its all a bit weird until later that day, the news drops that after the previous race (Canada, where George had overtaken Lewis for p3 towards the end of the race) the whole paddock had received an email allegedly from a disgruntled mercedes team member, accusing Toto and Mercedes of trying to kill Lewis, that they were intentionally sabotaging him, that George was sleeping with Toto and vague threats against all of them.

Toto was furious about it and reported it to the police, and even hired a private investigator to find out who was behind it but seemingly got nowhere. The interesting part was that it was sent to an identical mailing list as the Christian Horner texts had been sent a few months before, AND someone claiming to be the author whatsapped a load of journalists too but never responded to anyone's replies. Everyone wrote it off as a disgruntled fan and nothing more ever came of it.

The irony is not lost on me that it sounds like we're on course for a repeat right now, but I'm hoping it doesn't get that far. Lewis fans really hate(d) George to an insane degree, like the guy was getting death threats, while being nothing but nice or supportive and constantly talking Lewis up when he was asked, but that just seemed to piss people off more. Truly a bizarre time.

[barbiehelmet]

What is emailgate I've looked everywhere and can't find a concrete answer.

oh god. ok anon, buckle in, let's go 😭

so feb 1, 2024, it's leaked that lewis goes to ferrari, right. everyone expects that this will have some influence on how lewis's last year at merc goes, he'll probably be left out of important discussions etc etc, the usual that happens when a driver leaves a team.

NOPE! it goes a bit beyond that. right off the bat the car seems like utter trash, and what's worse, it looks like lewis has suddenly forgotten how to qualify? george outqualifies him in p much every single quali session, lewis seems very resigned to this, and even goes so far as to say he doesn't expect to outqualify george all season.

there's a couple other incidents, like lewis's tires having some kind of issue with tire blankets or something during a quali? so they were cold when they went on the car and he couldn't warm them up. this obviously impacted his quali.

then, june 10th, an email gets sent to every single person in the paddock to whom horner's texts had also been leaked. this implies that the person who leaked it is an insider or somewhat connected to the sport (although it's said they could've gotten the emails elsewhere too). a bunch of journalists also got the email and even got whatsapp messages with the same text.

you can read about that here.

now obviously the email has some very serious accusations. it accuses merc of essentially trying to sabotage lewis and maybe kill him, and that it's something that everyone within knows is happening. the reason given is that "toto is like a scorned wife" and that he favors george.

merc kind of ... overreact. as in they call the fucking cops.

they also say they'll do an internal investigation. the cops say no crime has been committed. idk what their investigation turned up.

the contents of the email make it seem like it was written by someone within the team. however, the team insists it was written by a deranged fan. the thing is, though, calling the cops is a massive overreaction if it's just a fan, because ignoring it would've been a far better course of action. however, if you're suspecting a leak inside the team... calling the cops makes sense.

another thing is that i doubt a fan would be able to get all those exact email addresses and numbers that were contacted with this email. this was the same address list that received the horner texts leak. whoever sent this email is unlikely to be "just a fan."

funnily enough though, the next race is spain, and lewis is on the podium. somehow apparently he suddenly knows how to drive?

things are ok for the next few races. he even wins at silversone, and then at spa (through russell's dsq). and then they head into summer break.

once summer break ends, it's back to business, to bullshit setups and shit qualis and strategy calls for lewis that do not make sense at all. and that goes on till the end of the season, though vegas and abu dhabi went pretty well. my guess is that they didn't want his farewell to stink especially after they released their cute narcissistic little "every dream needs a team" video.

a lot of people, even people on here, thought the email was sent by a fan too, and that there was noooo way merc could ever sabotage lewis. my personal opinion is that it's embarrassing to glaze a corporation that hard lmao you can't rule out sabotage in the lies and sabotage sport. there are plenty of good reasons merc would try to make lewis look worse than george (want to make george look better to sponsors, aren't happy with how the lewis-to-ferrari news was leaked, toto's just mad he can't force lewis out of the sport anymore and his legacy will now be tied to ferrari instead of merc, toto wants to look like he's getting rid of a bad driver and not that he fumbled the GOAT etc etc) and not many good reasons for why it's not sabotage ("why would they!!!" is not a reason).

then there's the other things that don't add up — lewis asking for info on the radio and not getting it from bono, the strategies that don't make sense, the fact that there are claims that george's car would be untouched after fp3 but there would be constant tinkering with lewis's even if it had been fine. which could mean nothing!! i mean, toto said himself that they'd been running experiments on lewis's car so it tracks with that. but lewis's demeanor the entire year was not a happy one and it was obvious he did not feel supported by his team. and that seemed to go just beyond leaving the team and having a bad car in his last year with them. keep in mind that merc were a comfortable 4th in constructors'; they weren't going to beat anyone nor was anyone going to catch up to them. they could afford to lose points here and there by simply not giving lewis optimal setups or making him experiment. so the argument that "they wouldn't sacrifice the points" doesn't hold much weight either imo.

so. make of all this what you will tbh. my own opinion lies somewhere in between; that there's a good chance it was sabotage, that you can't rule it out, and that dickriding a corporation just because you don't like a driver or his fans or think yourself smarter than everyone is just embarrassing.

edit: adding this comment serena williams made under lewis's post, for reasons...

[quarantaquattro]

the day flavio briatore comes back rumours of scandalous emails are being circulated around the paddock

coincidence? i think not

[gargoylegeckooo]

The best part about that email is that they only name Lewis, George, Toto and Bono. Like please, if you’re gonna claim you’re someone from the team, at least prove it by giving out some less obvious names.

“With the exception of Bono and those of us who love Lewis.”

Like… can this sound anymore like a deranged fan??? Anyone who believes this shit is crazyyyy.

[thenotsolittlemisspeculiar]

What's the Real Name of Your "God"?

Because I'm sure it's not Jesus Christ.

[medicine-chief]

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[vulgartrader]

AP: Clinton Offered Plea Deal in Regards to Email Case

From the AP:

The discussion of a plea bargain took place late last month and was offered by a high-ranking Justice Department official to the Clinton lawyer.

During the exploratory talks with the prosecutor, the Clinton attorney was told that despite former FBI Director James Comey's decision last July not to prosecute Hillary, the Justice Department has reexamined the email case and believes there are ample grounds for prosecuting Hillary on a number of counts.

Under the Justice Department's plea offer, Hillary would be required to sign a document admitting that she committed a prosecutable crime. In return, the DOJ would agree not to bring charges against Hillary in connection with the email probe.

Plea bargains are typically offered after a person has been charged with a crime, which of course, hasn’t happened. Further proof Clinton is getting special treatment.

If that wasn’t enough, here’s the kicker:

Also as part of the agreement, the Justice Department would not proceed with an investigation of Hillary's pay to play deals with foreign governments and businessmen who contributed to the Clinton Foundation or who paid Bill Clinton exorbitant speaking fees.

[yesterdayiwrote]

I can't believe you're going to make me defend The Daily fucking Mail, but them being the first to explicitly outline this email's existence and reference the contents of it is largely irrelevant to the issue at hand.

The email itself is the libel and defamation. That was committed the second the author hit send and circulated it to the entire paddock. Mercedes, Toto or George would still have grounds to pursue legal action against the person who had sent it even if you had never been made aware of it's existence.

Should the Daily Mail have publicised it, is an entirely different question and I guess the jury is out on that, but they are entitled to report on the allegations that have been made directly to them on the basis that they report them as allegations not fact and assign them to a third party. That's how technically Jonathan McEvoy's will get away with his shitty assertion that 'someone close has told him it's probably true' - although I'm sure Merc's lawyers will be interested to know who that was.