Why Mercedes can't punish Hamilton

Once again the tensions between Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes employers have been laid bare, in public - all the more exposed for having come to light during the championship decider, and in what would otherwise have been a processional and jejune Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Opinions differ as to whether Hamilton was right or not to 'occupy the crease' in the manner of the famously slow-scoring cricketer Geoffrey Boycott, who once took a whopping nine and a half hours to reach a score of 246 not out. But the majority of people who work in or around motor racing believe that Hamilton did the right thing - for himself - in backing his team-mate, Nico Rosberg, into the clutches of rivals approaching quickly from behind, and ignoring all instructions to cease and desist.

There are exceptions. Sebastian Vettel spoke of "dirty tricks", but then one should note that he chose to express this opinion over his team radio, Formula 1's equivalent of the stage whisper, in the knowledge that folk upstairs with the power to adjust the result were listening.

As one senior team insider said, "If Max [Mosley] was still running the FIA, Lewis would probably be facing a 151(c) [the section of the International Sporting Code pertaining to acts prejudicial to competition] charge right now..."

What's most surprising is that the Mercedes top brass became so exercised about the events playing out under their noses, and that they then allowed what should have been an internal matter of team discipline to play out in public. One or other of the team's drivers was going to be the world champion anyway, and Mercedes had long since sewn up the constructors' title, which from a business point of view is the most important trophy, since it determines the team's share of the prize pot.

This is, then, a question of Hamilton's manifest insubordination. "Anarchy doesn't work in any team or any company," said Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff after the race, and he refused to rule out taking disciplinary action against his driver.

But what effective action could Wolff actually take? In the matter of Hamilton, he has a spectacularly weak hand.

Wolff described the moment when his fellow executive director Paddy Lowe addressed Hamilton directly on the team radio - breaking the usual in-race protocol in which only the race engineer talks to the driver - as "the highest escalation we have". If this is the most potent and emphatic disciplinary tool in the Mercedes arsenal, perhaps a phone call to Adnan Khashoggi or Mark Thatcher might be in order to procure a weapon with greater firepower.

We've been in this territory before. When Rosberg hit Hamilton on the second lap of the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix, the immediate fall-out bluntly illustrated Hamilton's lack of confidence in Wolff's ability to punish Rosberg.

"It reminds me of being at school," he told reporters after a post-race team meeting in which Rosberg had admitted to not having taken evasive action during the incident. "Teachers will talk but they don't do anything. You just get a detention. They [Mercedes] won't even do that."

"If Lewis said there's going to be a slap on the wrist and no consequence then he's not aware of what consequences we can implement," said Wolff in response. "We can do a lot. Today we have seen the limits of the slap on the wrist. Maybe the slap on the wrist isn't enough."

After ruminating on the matter for several days, Wolff summoned both drivers to a clear-the-air meeting at the team's Brackley HQ, during which he fined Rosberg a large sum - rumoured to be in six figures - and ordered him to make a public apology. From then on the ceasefire between Rosberg and Hamilton held, by and large, for another 18 months, until the two collided on the first lap of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix and came to rest in the gravel trap.

Again, opinions differ on who was at fault in this particular instance of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, but the consensus points towards Rosberg. Although both drivers claimed at the time that they had resolved any tensions over this incident quickly, Wolff later alluded to the team being "scarred" by the experience, a choice of words that was freighted with unseen rancour.

Perhaps not unseen for too long. During the Abu Dhabi weekend, rumours circulated within the paddock that the events of Barcelona had been much more tumultuous than previously thought or reported - and that Hamilton had gone so far as to threaten to quit the team, or (depending on who was reporting the rumour) that he had issued Wolff with a "back me or sack me" ultimatum. Without proper sourcing this might have remained in hearsay territory, but as is the way in this era of rolling news, sooner or later someone with a microphone and some time to fill was bound to report it as fact.

Still, when asked to comment directly on the story, Hamilton did not deny that such a conversation had occurred, and in the prevailing post-truth culture a non-denial is as good as confirmation to many ears.

This was another demonstration of how Hamilton has got Wolff, Lowe and the entire Mercedes PR machine running in ever decreasing circles. He says what he wants, when he wants (or, in the case of the Snapchat farrago and his cancelled press call in Japan, says nothing at all, except at his leisure to his acolytes on social media). He is untouchable; he has no respect for his employers' capacity or willingness to back up negotiation with force.

It's difficult to imagine how he could be punished effectively per se, let alone in a proportionate manner for his supposed mutiny in Abu Dhabi. Would a six-figure sum fit the 'crime'? Would it cause him pain - enough to think twice about following the same course in the future - if it did? Is it possible to levy a meaningful fine on a person who is as rich as Croesus?

Probably not. You could argue that the only significant torment Hamilton has suffered this year is the (most likely misplaced) conviction that his own team has been trying to nobble him in favour of Rosberg, by sneakily engineering mechanical failures. Unlikely as this may sound, there are flat-Earthers out there who readily believe it.

One punitive measure that has been mooted - though not by Wolff, who simply maintains that he is considering his options - is to suspend Lewis for one or more races or tests in 2017. This, indubitably, is the nuclear option.

Even assuming that Mercedes has given itself the right to do so in its contract with Hamilton, suspending him would most likely set in motion the end of the relationship between the team and its most successful and bankable driver. There may also be some blowback from the FIA - which reserves the right to suspend drivers for disciplinary reasons under its penalty points system - and Formula 1 'ringmaster' Bernie Ecclestone, who would look askance at one of the sport's biggest box office draws vanishing from the screen.

There's also the question of how a suspension might affect Mercedes' position in the all-important constructors' standings if Hamilton's stand-in were to underperform. The most likely candidates for the seat would be one of Mercedes' development drivers, but Pascal Wehrlein has yet to set the world alight and Esteban Ocon has a few rough edges to polish off yet. Since Wolff has to answer to the Daimler board for any blunders, this may be too much of a risk for his appetite.

For the same reasons he cannot easily sack Hamilton. But, equally, Hamilton cannot threaten to quit with any serious conviction - where else can he go? Red Bull? Only if he wants Max Verstappen in the garage next door. Ferrari? One only has to look at the glum faces of Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen to see that as a fool's errand.

In any case, and bearing in mind the proviso that contracts were made to be broken, none of the leading teams has a vacancy until 2018 at the earliest. That locks Hamilton into Mercedes for now, unless he wants to follow Jenson Button 'on sabbatical'.

As a textbook example of how not to run a career, Lewis would do well to examine the fortunes of his old nemesis Fernando Alonso, whose hot temperament has cooled somewhat in recent years, but who has still not shaken a reputation for being difficult to manage. One of the principal reasons for Alonso not winning a world title since 2006 is that he has consistently made poor team moves - or, rather, been forced to do so by dint of falling out with his employers.

This is one area where Wolff has the edge over his driver. Lewis "wears his heart on his sleeve", as the cliche goes; he acts instinctively, often appearing not to have looked more than one move ahead (as evidenced by needless nonsense such as the Snapchat saga). Wolff has been patiently setting up his pieces on the board, ready for a checkmate further down the line if necessary.

For now, Mercedes and Hamilton are locked together in an uneasy marriage of convenience. Wolff's priority over the coming 12 months will be to ensure that his potential replacements are ready at a time of his own choosing - which is why he is unlikely to act now.