09/12/2023
NEWS STORY
Perhaps, just perhaps, we're getting this whole Mr and Mrs Wolff thing all wrong.
OK, we bought the Columbo box set last Christmas, but even so something about this saga stinks... our suspicions rising after typing the words "teams united".
So let's light a cigar, brush the ash from our old raincoat and wonder if there really is just one more thing.
Let's face it the teams are never united, only when it suits them... think blocking Andretti, demanding more money...
Yet suddenly all differences are put aside and they band together to leap to the defence of F1 and Mr and Mrs Wolff.
But what if F1 and Mr and Mrs Wolff weren't the actual intended victims of this saga.
What if the story was deliberately leaked to Business F1 with the intention of damaging not F1, not Mr and Mrs Wolff but someone else.
It is worth noting that one of the backers of Business F1 is former team boss Colin Kolles who is no fan of Toto Wolff, far from it.
Indeed, the two went to court almost a decade ago after the Romanian/German was alleged to have attempted to blackmail the Austrian over comments he was alleged to have made about the Mercedes team's then management. The dispute was subsequently settled privately though ever since Kolles has shown no sign of warming towards Wolff, while Business F1 continues its attacks on a regular basis.
Consequently, it is not beyond the bounds of reason that if someone approached the magazine with talk of Wolff being party to inside information, it would leap at the opportunity.
The moment the investigation was announced attention obviously focussed on the Wolffs, and while Mercedes, F1 and Susie Wolff were all quick in issuing statements we have heard nothing from FIA president, Mohammed ben Sulayem, the man who will have rubber-stamped the investigation knowing the controversy it would mean.
There is no disputing that there is no love lost between F1 and Ben Sulayem. Though he was not responsible for what happened in Abu Dhabi in 2021, he was responsible for the perceived lack of action taken against Michael Masi, who according to some should have been hung, drawn and quartered or at the very least had to face a "booting" a la Bart Simpson.
Since then Ben Sulayem has been a thorn in the side of F1, be it the Andretti saga or his questioning of the $20bn valuation of the sport, a move which caused FOM to call in the lawyers. Why, he has even talked of bringing Masi back into the fold! It is almost as though he is deliberately taunting F1.
In a true case of your social media history coming back to haunt you, in January the Emirati made the headlines for comments made back in 2001, when he is understood to have said that he did "not like women who think they are smarter than men".
When the story appeared, Ben Sulayem and the FIA were quick to insist that the original comment, which had been published on his own website, was "not a reflection of his beliefs", certainly in terms of 2023.
At a time F1 was going full speed ahead in its determination to make the sport more inclusive, this was a major embarrassment for Ben Sulayem... but again, who trawled through his website for the comment in the first place, and why?
That aside however, remembering the original comment, and who made it, perhaps explains the force of Susie Wolff's response to the allegation, which she said is "rooted in intimidatory and misogynistic behaviour".
It barely needs explaining that claiming that one does "not like women who think they are smarter than men" has to be seen as the ultimate in "intimidatory and misogynistic behaviour" and not worthy of an FIA president.
So what if this isn't about discrediting F1 or Mr and Mrs Wolff but instead a bid to discredit the FIA president who appears to be the only one standing in the way of Liberty Media taking total control of the sport and somehow throwing off the shackles of the governing body.
As opposed to going head-to-head, why not manufacture a story - after all it was leaked to just one outlet - that will ultimately come to nothing and merely put the FIA, and particularly its president, in a bad light.
Bernie Ecclestone was always about smoke and mirrors, and this appears to be a classic case of us all looking in one direction while the real story is over there.