Toto Wolff, the motorsport boss at Mercedes, said he was concerned about what he said were personal attacks and statements by the Red Bull F1 team after last weekend’s controversial British GP.
After the much-discussed and described incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, the Red Bull team has never minced words and placed the blame for the collision entirely on the world champion. Team principal Christian Horner talked about ‘dirty driving,’ Red Bull Motorsport boss Helmut Marko thought it was ‘reckless’ and even wanted Lewis Hamilton to be suspended.
They were also not kind to Hamilton from the Verstappen camp. Father and son Verstappen found it disrespectful of the Brit that he was celebrating his victory exuberantly while his colleague was still being examined in hospital.
Toto Wolff says he understands the fuss and commotion in the Red Bull camp, but he also thinks they have gone too far.
“I think you can understand it from a sporting point of view, it was an emotional situation,” Wolff told Motorsport.com. “I understand that.”
“Nevertheless, the language they used, and the fact that they made it so personal, was of a level unseen in this sport.”
“I understand the bias of the crash and the emotions of a father and his son, I would probably do the same but I would use different language.”
Wolff would also like to emphasize that his team decided to celebrate only after they received a message from Red Bull that Max Verstappen was okay.
“We had received feedback from Red Bull senior management that Max was okay,” said Wolff.
“Christian also informed Michael Masi over the intercom that Max was unharmed and we also received the same message from the FIA. So we would never have celebrated if Max was injured. I think that’s very important to understand.”
The Austrian also says that once the wind has died down, he will contact Red Bull to restore their ‘professional relationship’.
“I think once all emotions have calmed down, we will try to restore our professional relationship for the sake of Formula 1. But apart from that, there were no discussions and there is no need to.”
Wolff is also aware that Red Bull will try to challenge the decision to only give Hamilton a ten-second time penalty based on telemetry showing that Hamilton has never gone through Copse Corner as fast as he did with Verstappen. . But that does not worry the Austrian.
“That’s Formula 1, I’m not worried about that,” said Wolff.
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