Mercedes team boss plays victim after fabolous win by Hamilton
Nov.15 - A visibly and audibly furious Toto Wolff said Lewis Hamilton won on Sunday despite the fact that "everything was against us" in Brazil.
The weekend was just a further escalation in the extreme intensity of the 2021 world championship battle between Mercedes' chasing Hamilton and title leader Max Verstappen.
"This team has always been united," said team boss Wolff, "but these decisions have brought us closer together.
"It was like everything was against us and I think that's what Lewis has felt his whole life and now we feel it together as a team.
"We're going to fight - that's the emotion we feel in the garage right now," he added.
Indeed, Hamilton touched down at Interlagos and was quickly faced with a grid drop for a new engine - before having his Friday pole stripped for a DRS slot that was too wide.
Red Bull's Verstappen was then slapped with a huge EUR 50,000 fine for touching the offending Mercedes wing in parc ferme, but then not penalised for allegedly running Hamilton off the track as they battled in Sunday's race.
"That was for the race director," Wolff explained when asked why he furiously lashed out at the TV cameras when Hamilton finally passed Verstappen.
"We'll look at everything in the next few days, because we can't let this sit. Decisions are being made that are incomprehensible," he insisted.
"We just learned that Red Bull was allowed to replace parts on their rear wing for the third time in a row. I'm not complaining, but I have to clarify this issue with the FIA.
"It doesn't help to do dirty laundry, but there is a limit somewhere."
"Max's defence was over the limit and he deserved a penalty, but sweeping that under the rug is the tip of the iceberg. Just ridiculous," Wolff raged.
Red Bull's Marko hit back: "Toto likes to talk all day. But are we racing or are we in kindergarten?"
The 'race director' referred to by Wolff, Michael Masi, defended the decision not to penalise Hamilton on the basis of what he calls the "let-them-race philosophy".
"Both cars went wide but didn't lose position," said the Australian.
"To be honest, I did think about the black and white flag for Verstappen but decided against it."
Red Bull was also firing on all cylinders in Brazil, but it wasn't their Honda engine power in the spotlight but rather Hamilton's "breathtaking" speed with his newly-fitted power unit.
"From what I can remember, this has not happened with a Mercedes engine in recent years," Dr Helmut Marko charged to the Austrian broadcaster ORF.
"It's only Hamilton's, because we are within range with the others. Mercedes has done a great job of getting that done at this stage of the season."
The implication is that something dubious may be going on not only with the engine, but with a Mercedes rear wing that may be excessively flexing at speed.
"That the one (rear wing) controversy followed the other was pure coincidence," Marko said.
"It looked like the others had one gear less than Hamilton. Mercedes has succeeded in creating a masterpiece with this rocket for the decisive phase," he told Sky Deutschland.
"It's puzzling at the moment and we have called the Honda engineers to help. But we can't compensate for it with the engine.
"If things continue like this, it won't look so good for the world championship," Marko admitted.
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The Merc-RBR war got even more interesting over the last weekend.
Indeed, great to see the real passion and drama! Bring it on! Fortunately for us we can see the next chapter already next week in Qatar! There is no Netflix script that can beat this year's title battle.
Really? I for one, don't even like the headline of this. 'Wolff plays victim' I don't think he was playing at anything. They were victims and then at the end of the day, Lewis gets hit with a fine for seatbelt infringement,yet Max got away with pushing Lewis off the track, so much so, that he went off track himself. Max is allowed to zigzag across the track and only gets a black and white flag shown, which he treated with utter contempt by answering team radio with, say hi to them. Who reported the seat belt? Red Bull? I would dearly love to know. So yes, I would say they were actual victims and Toto didn't have to 'play victim.'
Hey Linda don't sweat it. Just rejoice. Despite all the roadblocks look what happened. Hammer shocked the racing world. So much so, what do you notice is not there to be noticed? The noise from the Hater brigade! They're probably weeping or in a state of shock with depression to the point where their fingers a numb....so typing is a struggle 😄. So just bask in the moment.
Overtaking 25 cars in 2 days.....stonkingly spectacular!
Id rather be talking about the rumour that Audi has bought Mclaren, as for the weekend, all the hype blah blah, Hamish has to win the next 2 races with Max finishing 2nd to take it to the wire, so how likely is that ?
And if Max wins one more race, and i say if, then its cruise to the championship , barring accidents,dnfs from either and even 3 fastest laps from Hamish .
So there we are , a great race if you have 25-30 kph speed differential on the straight to do 99% of overtakes and onto the next
Audi buying Mcl, Why not, they own everything else..!
Reposted here just to annoy the Jacks
Must stop hiding,must stop hiding, must stop hiding, there ive got it now...
Reposted here to mock the Fly. "You pitiful sour puss you" Lol
RE Audi buying McL: Woking has not only strongly denied the rumour, but have asked Autosport for a retraction of the article. Probably means that it's a done deal. :) Seriously, sounds like the W Group is serious about F1 entry. I don't get it. Sounds like a money pit with little return. If true they're gonna' need a hot young German driver. Vettel has never been a big draw. What are they to do, steal MSC from Ferrari? Your thoughts?
Initial thoughts are, good way to fit more Audi or Porsche engines into the back of Mcl road cars, money pit well.., at least there's the budget cap, so apart from engines they know what there spending , and not forgetting of course Merc used to own a fair chunk of Mcl, and now own a fair chunk of AM, of course Mcl is now owned mainly i think by venture capitalists, so no big surprize if they want to make a quick $, and then historically BMW wanted to buy Williams team, so, Denial is great, but what **ACTUALLY** have they denied .
Germans like to own things, and keep the *German* car workers busy, with of course all the profits going back to the fatherland, and with Electrification of the industry speeding up, maybe they see it as a relatively cheap way of promoting the whole Groups efforts that way.You only have to look at how theyve transformed Bentley and Lambos fortunes
For me, whether its a good deal , a bad deal , real or fake, the only issue i can see is that the freehold of the MCL site is now owned by someone else, and as i say Germans like control and safety
As for a german driver, Well it might be a nice touch and in 5yrs time one might pop up , but i dont think this is a major issue
But to be fair all this is completely boring , lets just chat about how good Hamilton is and praise our saviour...smh
Thx, good points. I've been a papaya car fan since the Can-Am days late 60's, hanging on the fence at the top of the esses at Riverside watching Bruce and Denny power the monsters through the loop and explode onto the back straight. I know I'm naive and it's been about $$$ for a long time, but with Williams gone I think of McL as the last of the great independents. I've always viewed OEMs as bullies beating on the real racers.
"Mercedes team boss plays victim after fabulous win by Hamilton" Should read "fabulous win by super fast Mercedes"...
Or "fabulous win by Lewis in a car finally faster than the RB".
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