Has Hamilton fallen out of favour with Mercedes?

[Zico]

Does have nothing to do with that. Nico isn't very popular in Germany, so no PR value. If they wanted to make the most of a German WDC, they would have ditched either Lewis or Nico for Wehrlein, who is very popular, especially among woman folk.

The striking thing is, that Lauda personally got Lewis to Mercedes and was his biggest team-internal champion since day one, up to the point that, being a comercially rated pilot, he personally piloted Lewis's private jet (for instance after China '14). Sometime between Austin '15 and the start of this season there must have been massive fall-out between lewis and Lauda, because this year he's turned into Lewis's most vocal critic.

Fair comments, makes a lot of sense to me. I haven't really followed the whole Merc team relationship thing, just had a gut feeling after seeing Lewis's body language recently that things are not rosy in the garden. I found his comments and guardedness quite revealing.

I guess the question is whether this fall out has travelled further into the team. Maybe Totos furious reaction of hiting the table on Sunday was only once he realised Nico had broken his front wing?