{"id":168690,"date":"2021-12-03T23:53:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T00:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=168690"},"modified":"2021-12-04T05:59:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T05:59:00","slug":"mercedes-forced-into-apology-over-hamiltons-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=168690","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes forced into apology over Hamilton's car"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas<\/a> Formula One racing team apologised this morning for the way the team announced its partnership with a company involved in a London high-rise where a fire killed 72 people.<\/p>\n

The team announced a sponsorship deal this week allowing building products maker Kingspan to put its logo on the nose cone of world champion Lewis Hamilton<\/a>\u2019s car beginning with a weekend race in Saudi Arabia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Survivors and family members of the people who died in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire immediately condemned the deal and asked the team to sever its ties with Kingspan. The fire started in a fourth floor refrigerator and raced up the residential building, which experts said likely was caused by flammable materials used in an exterior renovation.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Hamilton fastest in Saudi practices as Leclerc survives crash<\/a><\/p>\n

Mercedes-AMG Petronas principal and CEO Toto Wolff<\/a> said the team \u201cengaged\u201d with Kingspan before the announcement to understand what role the company\u2019s products played in the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\"Toto<\/p>\n

\u201cOn behalf of our team, I would sincerely like to apologize to you for the additional hurt that this announcement has caused,\u2019\u2019 Wolff said in a letter to the families that was posted on Twitter. \u201cIt was never our intention to do so.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Wolff said he hoped to meet with Grenfell Tower survivors as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Driver stretchered off Mount Panorama after brutal crash<\/a><\/p>\n

Criticism of the deal is particularly difficult for Mercedes because Hamilton, a seven-time world champion from Stevenage, England, has been outspoken in his support of the Grenfell community. Hamilton is currently in second place in the Formula One driver\u2019s standings with two races left in the season.<\/p>\n

In a letter sent to Wolff earlier this week, the community group Grenfell United said Kingspan \u201cplayed a central role in the pain and suffering that we feel today,\u201d citing evidence presented to a public inquiry into the disaster.<\/p>\n

\"Lewis<\/p>\n

Kingspan said it played no role in the design or construction of the remodelling project blamed for the Grenfell disaster.<\/p>\n

In addition, the company said Kingspan products accounted for only a small percentage of the insulation used in the project, and it was used as a substitute without the company\u2019s knowledge \u201cin a system that was not compliant\u201d with building regulations.<\/p>\n

Wolff acknowledged the \u201cdeep and ongoing pain\u201d suffered by survivors<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to thank Grenfell United for the offer to meet in person for me to learn and understand better,\u2019\u2019 Wolff said \u201cI look forward to coming together as soon as we can.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One racing team apologised this morning for the way the team announced its partnership with a company involved […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168690"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168692,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168690\/revisions\/168692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}