After Terrifying Toto Wolff Injury During F1 Summer Break, Should Mercedes Impose Ban on Lewis Hamilton’s Dangerous Off-Track Adventures?

Once an adrenaline junkie, always an adrenaline junkie. To be a Formula 1 driver or even be affiliated with the sport, it’s almost a given that you need to love the adrenaline rush that comes with it. While just driving F1 cars at upwards of 300kmph—or just being around them—is enough of a rush for some people, Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff don’t fit into that category. Instead, they chase the next high they can get, and doing exactly that landed Wolff in a cast one week into F1’s annual summer break.

Considering the adventures Hamilton embarks on are much more extreme than what injured Wolff, could Mercedes restrict Hamilton from doing what he loves seeing what happened to Wolff? But what happened with Wolff that was so severe that it could compel Mercedes to take action against Hamilton?

The ghosts of his 2014 past haunted Toto Wolff

Before the 2014 Hungarian GP weekend, Wolff and a few Mercedes team personnel were involved in a cycling pile-up along the Danube River in Hungary. Wolff, who triggered the accident, sustained a fracture to his right wrist, elbow, collarbone, and shoulder. He even had a metal disc inserted into his wrist, which made his wife, Susie Wolff, nickname him “Totonator,” in reference to the Terminator.

Needless to say, it was a terrifying incident that resulted in multiple injuries. Suzie posted a picture of him on Twitter, captioning it, “My husband the hero! 😊 As we know, boys will be boys… Looks like I am on nurse duty for the next few weeks!” Last night, Susie must’ve felt a sense of déjà vu as she posted a series of pictures on Instagram depicting her family’s “action-packed” summer break. The last picture in the montage shows Toto walking hand in hand with their son, Jack, with his left hand covered in a cast.

Susie’s caption cleared everything up as she wrote, “Action-packed start to the summer holidays. Last picture shows how the downhill mountain biking ended for Toto… 🫤” As a family of adrenaline junkies, how could they have passed up the opportunity to go downhill mountain biking? Unfortunately, it led to Toto breaking his left arm, but we can be sure he would say the experience was worth it.

While Toto Wolff mostly requires his hands to throw his headphones and slam his fist on tables in the Mercedes garage, Lewis Hamilton’s hands—dare I say—are much bigger assets to his team. Considering Hamilton chooses much riskier sports, Wolff’s incident could lead to Mercedes imposing a ban on Hamilton. To put into perspective what all Hamilton engages himself in, here are a few things he’s done over the past few years.

The many adventures of Lewis Hamilton

Racing F1 cars almost every weekend has made Hamilton an adrenaline junkie. So much so that even when he’s not driving his car, he’s chasing the high that comes with it. In a 2021 interview, he revealed why he does that. He said, “You basically have to substitute [the adrenaline rush]. You’re on this massive high when you come after the race. Then you hit a low. Then you have to pick yourself back up. So I usually fill it in with things, fun activities in between training.”

After a disappointing 2021 Monaco GP, Hamilton went on a skydiving expedition to get his spirits up. But he didn’t do a simple maneuver. Instead, in proper Hamilton fashion, he did a series of forward rolls before attempting to turn his back to the ground. While the latter part didn’t work out too well, it was still an Ethan Hunt-level (Tom Cruise’s character in Mission: Impossible) maneuver. 

To further embrace his Hunt-level braveness, he asked Tom Cruise if he could play a part in Top Gun: Maverick. While Cruise did offer him a role, Hamilton couldn’t commit to it because of his superhuman day job. But he did get to fly a fighter jet as part of a promotional video Mercedes did with IWC. Apart from these adrenaline-inducing activities, the 38-year-old has also expressed his love for MotoGP bikes. He even got to drive Valentino Rossi’s bike. Hamilton enjoys surfing as well. He’s dabbled in wrestling and even sandboarding.

Read More: Months After Being Rejected by Lewis Hamilton, Maverick Tom Cruise Reunites With Him to Perform a Fun Challenge

If you think there isn’t anything Hamilton can’t do, you’re right. Although there’s one thing he’s terrified of, despite having a love for wild animals. What is it? Sharks. But apart from sharks, he loves spending time in the wild, in animals’ natural habitat. To fulfill a dream of his, he traveled to Rwanda during the summer break last season and watched gorillas in the wild. If, in all his trysts, nothing severe has ever happened to him, should Mercedes prevent him from doing all this?

Toto Wolff believes Lewis Hamilton is better because of all he does outside of F1

Hamilton has revealed on numerous occasions that his family is never too pleased with him when he jets off to all his extreme adventures. In a 2017 interview with The Sun, he said, “My family gives me stick all the time about my extreme sports. I have a responsibility to my team and sponsors who work hard — I would not jeopardize that. F1 means too much to me. There’s a very big difference between having fun and taking unnecessary risks.”

Toto Wolff has that faith in Hamilton that he’s never once discouraged him from engaging in the sports he does. In fact, Wolff believes it helps the seven-time champion perform better on track. As quoted by gptoday.net, Wolff revealed, “I believe that Lewis’ various other interests take his mind off between the races. Having a good time is something I think is very positive and very important for his performance on the racing track. We are very open with each other with what we do. We ‘Facetime,’ we send videos, and I feel in a very good place with him.”

As Hamilton said, he would never do anything to jeopardize Mercedes or his career in F1. Even Wolff understands that accidents like his can happen, but that doesn’t stop him from doing them. Considering Hamilton has never once turned up to a race weekend and given anything less than his 100%, Mercedes knows it can trust the driver who has helped build their legacy. 

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After 17 years in the sport, Lewis Hamilton knows what makes him tick, and chasing an adrenaline rush even away from F1 is what he loves. The best part about it? He has a team principal who he knows will look out for him if there ever comes a time when Mercedes feels it needs to restrict the seven-time champion.