Toto Wolff has rejected suggestions that Mercedes is deliberately holding back George Russell in his title fight with team-mate Kimi Antonelli. The team boss called the theory “brainless” and said people who believe it should watch children’s television instead of Formula 1.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has strongly denied that the team is favouring Kimi Antonelli over George Russell in this year’s title fight, ESPN reported on October 9.
The Background
Antonelli leads Russell by 84 points in the standings and looks set to become Formula 1’s youngest world champion before the end of the year.
Russell’s challenge has been damaged several times by bad luck and reliability problems. That has led to claims, mostly on social media, that Mercedes is deliberately compromising him.
What Wolff Said
“They’re brainless, whoever thinks that,” Wolff said at a press conference ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix. “It’s completely nonsensical.”
“Do they think I have a button and that says George engine failure now, or disadvantaging one driver against the other when we’re fighting for a constructor championship, when we’ve always had the mindset of providing everybody equal material?”
He said he had seen the same kind of accusation before, from fans of Lewis Hamilton.
‘Teletubbies’
Wolff said people who believe the theory should stop following the sport.
“Rather than watching Formula 1, they should do Teletubbies or, I don’t know, some Mickey Mouse,” he said.
He was scathing about online abuse in general. “People hide behind their screens and then they lash out. There’s a lot of polarisation going on.”
He also claimed to find some of it amusing. “These people really contribute to my entertainment when they’re abusing the team or myself. I’m Satan, I’ve heard.”
His Record on Team-Mates
Wolff joined Mercedes in 2013 from Williams.
He was team principal during three seasons of intense title battles between team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, and insisted that fairness between the two sides of the garage has always been central to how he runs the team.
An Awkward Weekend for the Timing
The comments came on a weekend when Mercedes is running its two cars in different specifications, with Russell in an older version and Antonelli in the upgraded one. On Friday it was Russell, in the older car, who was the quicker of the two.
Image: Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff in 2016 (file photo). Photo by MacKrys via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
