Mercedes Motorsports Dir Toto Wolff Allegedly Blackmailed By Ex-F1 Team Boss Colin Kolles

Former HRT Team Principal COLIN KOLLES tried to blackmail Mercedes Motorsport Dir TOTO WOLFF earlier this year, according to MOTORSPORT. A conversation between Wolff and a then-unnamed former F1 team boss was "secretly recorded" and then threatened to be used against him. German newspaper Bild reported Wolff spoke negatively about his own boss, ROSS BRAWN, colleague NIKI LAUDA, and also Daimler Chair DIETER ZETSCHE, "whilst divulging details of his clashing co-ownership of the Williams team." Wolff had reportedly "been taped in mid February this year by former HRT and Force India boss Kolles, in Barcelona." Kolles then "threatened to release the details of their explosive conversation unless he paid a sum of money." Wolff and Kolles "have settled their dispute with the intervention" of F1 CEO BERNIE ECCLESTONE, while Mercedes "has obtained a court order preventing the publication of the details of the conversation" (MOTORSPORT, 7/17).