regarding my prev tag about a merc employee sending the email and my overall thoughts about lewis at mercedes and possible sabotage:
i think it’s very clear at this point that things behind the scenes at mercedes are messy, and that the relationship with lewis and mercedes has been fractured for a couple years now. it’s hard to believe that it has gotten this bad. if we were to go back to 2020 or even 2021 it would’ve been unthinkable that it would get to this point: that lewis would leave mercedes in the first place and go to another team rather than retire, that the possibility of the team sabotaging him is even being considered.
and i think we should consider it a possibility that there is sabotage happening at the team. and by that i don’t necessarily mean that the entirety of merc is actively plotting against lewis because there are thousands of people working there, some of whom have been there since the beginning of lewis’ tenure with them, and have a strong working relationship and even friendship with him. i don’t doubt that there are people at mercedes who still want the best for lewis in terms of results and life in general. however, the opposite can be true as well— there very well could be people in the team who do not like or care for lewis, and all it takes is one, two or a few people here and there to cause trouble.
it might sound illogical to sabotage lewis, but. just because it seems "illogical" doesn’t mean it’s impossible. people are not robot-computers that act rationally all the time, there are plenty of situations where people at mercedes have not acted logically in the past couple of years. it is illogical that merc wouldn't give lewis, their most successful driver, the most successful driver of all time, a 2+1 contract and an ambassadorship. it is illogical to replace lewis with an almost 18 year old who skipped an entire feeder series and can’t drive a road car yet. it is illogical for the marketing team to actively ignore lewis, their most popular driver, in their social media posts, for the admin to beef with lewis fans publicly on the official account. there have been many instances of illogical behaviour, and unthinkable things have happened in the past couple of years. why not one more illogical or unthinkable thing? there have been many instances where lewis has been treated unfairly by the team, and it could be a coincidence or incidental of course, but how many coincidences or incidents have to take place before it is not that anymore?
which brings me to the email. we do not know who sent it and what the intentions are with the email— it could be sent by someone who genuinely cares about lewis and his well-being, it could also be someone who wants to cause trouble for mercedes, and doesn’t care one bit about the consequences it will have on lewis. it might be a mercedes employee and it might not be. however, the fact that it has been sent out— by someone who knows something about the inner workings of f1 media— and is being investigated means that we cannot any longer ignore the murmurings of what is happening behind the scenes at mercedes.
for the record, im not saying for sure that there is sabotage happening. like i said, i believe there are still people at merc who still like and care for lewis. it could be just some people being bad at their jobs, and not anything more deliberate and sinister than that. we, as outsiders, don’t know and won’t ever know the full details of what’s happening and will happen at mercedes. sabotage is only one possibility out of many, but it is not as improbable as some people think.
