Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff suggested that he would look closer into Yuki Tsunoda’s retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix if Mercedes was in a championship fight.
Tsunoda retired in unusual fashion on Sunday from Zandvoort, coming to a stop on the circuit when he believed one of his tyres was not properly attached.
He returned to the pit lane for new tyres and then was sent back onto the track, before coming to a halt once again.
His stoppage caused a Virtual Safety Car, which allowed Max Verstappen to pit from the lead and retain his position out in front.
Some suggested that the manoeuvre could’ve been orchestrated, given AlphaTauri’s close ties to Red Bull.
Wolff says that if Mercedes was closer to the title fight this year, he would analyse Tsunoda’s non-finish in a more detailed manner.
“I don’t know, I’m so looking at us at the moment in terms of where do we need to find performance,” Wolff said, when asked if he found Tsunoda’s DNF suspicious.
“If we were to fight for a championship that would be something I would closely look at.”
Tsunoda continued on his way after undoing his seatbelt, when the AlphaTauri engineers didn’t spot any irregularities in the data.
Wolff also raised safety concerns over the situation, with the car being driven on the track in an unsafe manner.
“Now I think what needs to be investigated for the safety of drivers and everybody out there, the driver stopped, unbuckled, did a full lap, came in, the problem wasn’t solved, they put the seatbelts back on and he drove out and stopped the car again,” he said.
“So I mean that probably could have changed the race that maybe we could have won, but in this sport maybe is anyway irrelevant.”
Verstappen went on to win the race for Red Bull, after another Safety Car intervention was called following Valtteri Bottas’ retirement from the grand prix.
Frankly, a slur of this nature merely indicates how Wolff’s criminal Austrian mind works. He should be given twenty-four hours to produce his concrete evidence, otherwise he ought to be banned from Formula One completely, for life. Briatore was finished for telling Piquet Jr to crash, Wolff should suffer the same fate if he has made these immensely serious allegations maliciously. Which is the way he usually does things. The whole thing is utterly bizarre, given that Wolff’s own driver committed a deliberate crash at Silverstone last year attempting to injure an opponent, and in full knowledge that said opponent could even be killed as a result of his action. Massive hypocrisy from Wolff.
I don’t think there is anything criminal in thinking this could be the case, I thought the same thing as it was happening while I watched the race live. It could turn out to be just a coincidence but it should be looked at. Teams do try to manipulate situations and use their various team members to influence the race, like swapping driver positions, having one driver block for or “protect” the other. Horner even said after the race that he was surprised Merc didn’t do that with Russell. RBR do own both teams so the possibility does exist. “Team orders” have existed in some form or other for decades so this is not new. Lots of teams have used one team driver to help the other before so not crazy to think this might be the case here. Not sure why you’re over reacting about this, it’s nothing new.
Wolf has a massive war chest of excuses and theories. He dug really deep, and I mean really deep for this theory. To think of something is one thing but to bring it up while talking to the press? No class at all. This guy will ruin F1.
This isn’t about a simple issue of team orders, which is perfectly legal. And while it wouldn’t be new, lots of teams have not done this. It has happened precisely once, and it cost Flavio Briatore the remainder of whatever Formula One career he would have had ahead of him otherwise. Therefore, if Wolff has made a false allegation of something that serious, which he has, he should face the same penalty as would have been due to a perpetrator of such an offence.
Who cares if it was or wasn’t on purpose
I think Mercedes has bigger problems can never get team strategy right and certainly seems to be Hamilton always getting the short end of the stick
Maybe it’s time for him to move on
Give Ferrari or Red bill a call
Wouldn’t that be ironic