Secret Mechanic: the not-so-public F1 feuds

Well well, we didn't see that coming did we? Of course we all did.

I am, perhaps predictably, talking about the very public break-up of F1's golden, or silver, couple, Lewis and Nico, or 'Lewco' for all you celebrity-entertainment lovers.

Monaco's never the most exciting weekend of F1 racing, but the event always comes with a certain level of entertainment, whether you're a fan of the sport, or a mechanic working in it. I always used to say the grand prix here got in the way of a great weekend, as we struggled to resist the temptation of the wild party-goers just meters away from our cramped and busy little garages. One way or another, it's never dull.

Last weekend was certainly entertaining. The lads down at Mercedes will have gone home on Monday morning with a bucket-load more cash going into the bonus kitty and probably had a good night on Sunday, but the dynamic within the team has just taken a whole new turn for the remainder of the season.

Whether or not Nico brought out the yellow flags in qualifying on purpose or not is almost irrelevant; the fact is, Lewis is convinced he did so and has been pretty vocal inside the team about making those feelings known.

Now, I've been around F1 and motor racing in general for long enough to know that it's impossible to have two equally competitive team-mates, battling for a championship, who remain friends throughout. In fact, other than when one driver's clearly faster than the other, a kind of unwritten number-one and number-two status, I don't remember two drivers in our teams really getting on well.

What I always see in these situations is how drivers squabbling in front of the cameras and in the press affects the rest of the team. Everyone's talking about how Lewis and Nico are no longer friends, how it might affect their championship and how can the team possibly deal with the situation.

Their 'friendship' is clearly facing some tests and it's likely it will affect their championship battles as they fight each other on and off the track, but the way the team deals with the situation is an often misunderstood dynamic.

The Mercedes duo's friendship is facing a few challenges © XPB

'The team', as it's referred to, is way more than the three or four people in the highest positions of any F1 company. Yes, they are the ones who'll need to speak to the drivers at some point to keep them in check, but it's easy to forget the hundreds of others back at base and, even more crucially, the race crews on either side of the team's own garage.

Based on my own experience, the guys and girls inside that Mercedes garage will have firmly placed themselves in one of three camps long before this public flare-up in Monte Carlo.

There are the people in the team who work in the 'middle' - the support crew, management and the like - who have no particular allegiance to either driver and genuinely just want a one-two finish at each race to secure the constructors' championship and a massive bonus. They might not necessarily favour one driver or the other.

Then of course, there are the car crews. The mechanics, engineers, trainers and so on, who's job it is to work solely towards getting their driver to the front. They also want a one-two finish, but only if their driver's first.

Each car crew is firmly behind their driver from the word go, but when the two drivers fall out, when they start fighting, accusing and raising suspicions of each other, whether publicly or just inside their own garages, it has an effect on the rest of the team.

Drivers talk openly with their mechanics and engineers, who are undeniably influenced by them. They're the figureheads of the team, the superstars. If they talk, you listen. If they do or say something controversial there aren't normally too many in their crew who'll disagree or tell them they're wrong.

Your whole focus as a mechanic is to work for him, back him up, fight for him and get him to the front, no matter how difficult that can be. It's you and him against the world and that's why it's such an amazing feeling when you win together, but so gut-wrenchingly difficult when you lose.

Lewis's crew at Mercedes will almost certainly be in no doubt that Nico pulled a dirty trick in Monaco and they'll have their own gloves off, ready to take on anyone who disagrees with them. Obviously Nico's crew will feel the opposite.

If he tells them his qualifying mistake was just that, that's what they'll believe and will defend him to the outside world, but more intriguingly perhaps, within their own team, too.

I've known mechanics and engineers to fall out to serious levels over things like this as the two sides of the garage retreat to their own corners, protecting their own.

It's one thing not to be forthcoming with certain information, data or thinking between crews until it's asked for, but another entirely when misinformation is given out, leaked or shared to deliberately throw the opposition off the scent.

Each driver's crew will inevitably take their man's side © LAT

Of course those are the kinds of things that go on all the time up and down the pitlane, but when, as a mechanic, you're fighting your mates on the other side of the garage for a world championship that means as much to you as it does the drivers, it takes on a whole new perspective.

I've seen drivers actively canvassing support among the garage against their own team-mates, even offer little brown envelopes of cash to their crews to guarantee their commitment during tough times.

The distrust that Lewis feels for his team-mate will undoubtedly be felt across his entire side of the Mercedes pit and could make for an uncomfortable atmosphere in the coming races.

As for those in the 'middle', well, if they haven't already, they may well make their own minds up which side they're on and that could very much depend on the way each behaves, let alone races as the season progresses.

The whole thing makes for a great story from the outside, but on the inside, it might not be the most comfortable place to be right now.