Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, has described Red Bull’s protest against George Russell’s victory in Canada as “petty and so small”.
The two teams have a long history of rivalry in the modern era, and there is no love lost between Wolff and Christian Horner, his Red Bull counterpart.
“First of all, it took team Red Bull Racing two hours before they launched the protest. You know, honestly, it’s so petty and so small,” Wolff told Sky Sports in New York at the launch of the new F1 movie.
“They’ve done it in Miami [where they were unsuccessful in protesting Russell’s third place]. Now they launched two protests [in Canada]. They took one back because it was ridiculous.
“They come up with some weird clauses, what they call clauses. I guess the FIA needs to look at that because it’s so far-fetched it was rejected.”
The grand prix ended under safety car conditions after Lando Norris hit the back of his team-mate, Oscar Piastri, and was unable to finish the race. During the final laps the Red Bull driver Verstappen, who finished second, complained on the team radio that Russell was braking suddenly behind the safety car, while Russell said Verstappen had overtaken him.
Red Bull made two protests. The first claimed Russell had driven erratically behind the safety car, and the second — which they later withdrew because Russell was complying with another rule — was around the distance between the Mercedes driver and the safety car.
The stewards accepted Russell’s explanation of the incident, which was that he braked to avoid being too close to the safety car, and was heating his tyres. In their written reasons, the stewards said, “We are satisfied that the driver of Car 63 [Russell] did not drive erratically by braking where he did or to the extent he did”. They also did not feel that Russell had engaged in unsportsmanlike conduct.
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“You know, you race, you win and you lose on track,” Wolff said. “That was a fair victory for us, like so many they had in the past, and it’s just embarrassing. One of them they actually pulled as a protest, they didn’t even follow it through because it was nonsense.
“The second one took us five hours because I don’t even know what you refer to as ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’ or something. What is it all about? Who decides it? Because I’m 100 per cent sure it’s not Max. He’s a racer, he would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing.”
Horner confirmed on Sunday evening that the protest was a team decision rather than Verstappen’s idea, having discussed it while the four-times world champion was conducting interviews in the media pen.
“No, absolutely not [no regrets],” Horner said. “I mean, it’s a team’s right to do so. We saw something we didn’t think was quite right.
“You have the ability to put it in front of the stewards and so that’s what we chose to do. Absolutely no regrets in that.”
Russell described the protest as “a bit of a faff for everybody”. Many Formula 1 personnel fly home on the evening of the Canadian Grand Prix to arrive back in England on Monday morning. Russell said two members of staff had missed their flights because of the delay that the protest caused, with the final race classification arriving at 9.10pm local time, for a race that ended at 3.35pm in Montreal.
The growing rivalry between Russell and Verstappen — with the Dutch driver also hitting the Mercedes in Barcelona — is reigniting the feud between the two teams, who clashed most memorably in the 2021 season.
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In Abu Dhabi last year, after another argument between their two drivers, Wolff called Horner a “yapping terrier”. Horner joked that he would “rather be called a terrier than a Wolff,” citing his loyalty and desire to go after the bigger dogs.
Wolff has also continued discussions with Verstappen over a potential move to Mercedes next season.
Elsewhere, the prospect of a Formula 1 grand prix in Thailand has significantly increased after the country’s government agreed $1.2billion of funding for the race set to take place in Bangkok.
It is likely that the race would first appear on the calendar in 2028, and is by far the most realistic of any new venues for F1 that are yet to be officially agreed, with discussions around an African Grand Prix halted for now.
Alex Albon, the Williams driver born in Westminster but who races under the Thai flag, has been involved in talks with the prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and supports the project. The funding means a formal proposal will now be submitted for a five-year contract running from 2028 to 2033 for a street circuit in Thailand’s capital.
The contract for the Barcelona Grand Prix expires after next year’s race, with its longer-term future in doubt given the arrival of Madrid’s circuit on the calendar next season.
