Angry Wolff calls lack of penalty for Verstappen move laughable

Toto Wolff was left wroth by the decisions that went versus his Mercedes team at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, calling the lack of a penalty for Max Verstappen’s move “laughable”.

Verstappen forced Lewis Hamilton off track at Turn 4 as the defending champion tried to overtake on the outside, with both cars running wide and rejoining with the Red Bull still in the lead. FIA race director Michael Masi opted not to investigate the incident as he felt it was winning under the philosophy to let the drivers race as much as possible, but Wolff tabbed it the “top of the iceberg” without moreover seeing Hamilton ruled for a rear wing issue in qualifying.

“I midpoint the whole weekend went versus us, we had a wrenched part on our wing which we couldn’t squint at, couldn’t analyze, failed the test, got disqualified, very harsh,” Wolff said. “Then you see Red Bull with three times in a row (fixing) the rear wing while stuff in parc ferme with no consequence. That’s one thing.

“That really peaked with the visualization in the race, which was really wrong defense from Max. Absolutely an inch over the limit, but he needed to do that to defend and Lewis just managed it plane increasingly brilliantly by lamister the contact and ending the race that way. But that was just over the line and should have been a five second penalty at least, Max probably knew that, but just brushing it under the carpet is just tip of the iceberg, it’s laughable.”

Wolff admits the way the weekend at Interlagos panned out left him struggling to contain his emotions as he didn’t finger Mercedes was fairly treated.

“I don’t want to requirement anything on the stewards, I think they have a difficult life anyway, they are only there to lose, whatever visualization they take one team’s gonna be grumpy,” he said. “And in that respect I don’t want to be in this chair, but in a unrepealable way when you’re taking punches all weekend, and then you have such a situation on top of everything, you’re just losing faith, in a way.

“I don’t want to moan here considering that is not how I see the sport. I think we have just had many punches in the squatter this weekend with decisions that could have swung either side for us or versus us but when it swings versus you it’s something I’m just wrestling about.

“I will defend my team, my drivers, to what comes, I’ve been unchangingly very diplomatic in how I discuss things but affairs has ended today. And whatever the rules are, if they say that’s on, then that’s fine. I’m not discussing the principle of nonflexible racing. Nonflexible racing is super, and should be on, but not when it’s been clarified surpassing that you can’t momentum somebody off the track.”