Mercedes chief Toto Wolff has labelled Red Bull as “petty” and “embarrassing” after its formal protest of George Russell’s Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix victory.
The Briton took his first win of the year at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, converting his pole position amid the threat of Max Verstappen behind.
Russell comfortably had the race in hand, but the late clash between both the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri brought out a late Safety Car, under which the race finished.
The Milton Keynes-based squad launched a formal protestation to the FIA after the race, citing erratic driving on Russell’s part after he slowed, causing Verstappen to momentarily overtake him with the Safety Car up ahead.
It also claimed that Russell had fallen back beyond the limit of 10 car lengths behind the Safety Car, but the protest was thrown out, and Russell duly kept his win.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner even went as far as saying after the race that Russell had conveyed a “clear objective” to engineer a situation in which Verstappen might incur a 12th penalty point which would see him earn a one-race ban.
Speaking at the world premiere of F1: The Movie last night, Wolff was vocal in his assessment of Red Bull’s decision to protest.
“Honestly, it’s so petty and so small,” he told Sky Sports F1. “They’ve done it in Miami. Now they launched two protests. They took one back.
“I guess the FIA needs to look at that, because it’s so far-fetched. It was rejected. You race, you win and you lose on track.
“That was a fair victory for us, like so many they had in the past, and it’s just embarrassing.”
Wolff absolves Verstappen of responsibility as Horner has ‘no regrets’ about protest
Wolff noted that despite his comments to race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase at the time, Verstappen appeared nonplussed about the incident after the race, despite his previous run-ins with Russell.
It led to Austrian to question who was really at the centre of the decision to lodge the complaint.
“It took us five hours [to resolve] there because…I don’t even know what they referred to, unsportsmanlike behaviour? What is it all about? Why do you know that? Who decides it?” he said.
“Because I’m 100% sure it’s not Max. He’s a racer. He would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing.”
The situation was also put to Horner on the red carpet in New York, and when asked if he regretted the decision, he reaffirmed his belief that the team were rightful to make the claim.
“Absolutely not, it’s a team’s right to do so,” he told Sky Sports F1 whilst on the red carpet. “We saw something we didn’t think was quite right and we have the ability to put it in front of the stewards, and so that’s what we chose to do. Asbolutely no regrets in that.”
READ MORE – George Russell escapes penalty after Red Bull protest to maintain F1 Canada victory
George was so obviously on the brakes and having a bit of a laugh, just winding them up, and they bit.