No favoritism
Toto Wolff chose the microphone of Sky Sports F1 during the Madrid weekend to respond very harshly and sharply to those who criticized his management of the internal dualism in the Mercedes garage between Antonelli and Russell, suggesting that the Brackley team has now chosen to favor the Italian. Wolff was particularly challenged by Russell’s fans, who claimed that the strategy used during the Italian GP in Monza had penalized #63 in favor of the World Championship leader.
“We absolutely did the right thing – Wolff replied – he (Russell) had hard tires. It was expected that a single stop was the best strategy. The medium tires were a compromise; we had to put mediums on Kimi because he started on hards. Obviously, there will be some ‘armchair warriors’ who will leave their comments after watching some other video online… saying that [Russell] was penalized is a real load of crap.”
What a slap to Ferrari
But Wolff also did not spare a heavy jab at Ferrari, which in Monza had quite a few problems with its two drivers, especially in the first lap when Charles Leclerc ‘accompanied’ Lewis Hamilton into the gravel: “Managing both sides of the garage has been part of our role for the last 12 years – Wolff stated – because when you fight for the title after a race, one of the two will inevitably be disappointed, while the other will be happy. I believe transparency, combined with the absence of double standards or favoritism, is the best way to manage the situation. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to make tough decisions. On Sunday morning, we have frank discussions: we analyze the various situations we face. If we are under pressure from another team and one of our drivers is behind the other but the one in front is too slow, we will swap positions on track if necessary“.
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“I can express my opinion and say that it is not right to push a teammate off the track at turn 2 – Wolff added, referring precisely to what happened at the Prima Variante in Monza between the two Ferraris – but three or four laps from the end we also experienced moments of tension between our two drivers that we did not expect, precisely because George had worn out tires while Kimi was a second faster. Did we expect them to duel like that, risking both ending up in the gravel? No. We could have made fools of ourselves at any moment, just like what happened to Ferrari. It really is a matter of details“.
