Toto Wolff sends a message to Red Bull: “The gloves are off”

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff voiced his displeasure with Red Bull after the team launched numerous protests during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend.

It all started of Friday when Red Bull launched a protest regarding Mercedes’ innovative DAS system, which was deemed legal by the stewards the same day.

Then on Sunday morning Red Bull decided to protest the stewards’ decision not to punish Hamilton for allegedely ignoring yellow flags during qualifying. This worked and Hamilton got handed a 3 place grid penalty in the final minutes before race start, which demoted him from P2 to P5.

Finally, the Briton got handed a five second penalty in the closing stages of the race, after a collision with Red Bull’s Alex Albon, which means he ultimately finished in P4, instead of P2.

“I thought the protest on Friday was actually fair play, but not on Sunday,” said Wolff in a post-race teleconference.

“Coming back on Sunday morning, turning around a decision from yesterday, if you have new evidence, that is what the rules allow, you have to take that on the chin.

“But coming back to your question – the gloves are off,” warned Mercedes’ team boss.

Wolff went on to explain Mercedes’ struggle with reliability all throughout the race.

“I think the reliability issues here come from the kerbs. It’s a great track, but if you run the kerbs too wide, which is within the rules, you damage your suspension.

“So it is a permanent evaluation of the driver, how quickly you want to go, how much you want to ride the kerbs.

“By their nature they want to go as quick as possible and if you do that you risk suspension damage or vibrations to the car that can break it,” concluded the Austrian.

Follow us on Twitter @SilverArrowsNet and like us on Facebook!

Comments are closed.