Toto Wolff has taken his frustration out on Red Bull, claiming Kimi Antonelli intentionally allowed the McLaren driver to overtake him at the Qatar Grand Prix.
Antonelli was passed by Oscar Piastri at Turn 1 early in Piastri’s second stint, just before his second stop, but made a mistake on the penultimate lap, allowing Lando Norris to pull out. Both McLaren drivers are involved in a championship battle with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, and after Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko suggested it was a case of Antonelli deliberately letting McLaren slip away in both cases, Wolff angrily refuted the claim.
“Bless him, Helmut,” said Wolff. “This is complete nonsense and it breaks my heart just to hear it. We are fighting for second place in the championship, which is important to us, but you are fighting for a possible third place. I mean, how stupid are you to say something like this?”
“I’m frustrated because I’m frustrated with the race itself and how it went. I’m frustrated with the last mistake, I’m frustrated with the other mistakes, and hearing nonsense like that turns me off.”
Wolff was also unhappy that Verstappen’s race engineer Giampiero Lambiase told the driver over the team radio: “I don’t know what happened to Antonelli, it looks like Max stopped the car and let Norris pass.” The two later cleared the air, but Wolfe said the comments were unnecessary and misinformed.
“The other thing is, beyond losing points in our constructors’ championship…I spoke to GP and I saw him and obviously he was emotional at that moment because I think he needed P3 or P4[in Abu Dhabi]to win the championship. I don’t know, but there was one position,” he said. “Right now they need more.
“I said to him, ‘He just went off the track. He had a little bit of time in the previous corner, but then he slowed down on the approach to the left-hander and lowered the throttle. At that moment, as can happen, I lost position.’ With the GP, everything is clear. We cleared the air. He said he didn’t see the situation. Why would he do something like this?
“Why would you even think about intervening in the driver’s championship? I mean, you really need to check yourself, see if you see ghosts.
“I told my GP there had been quite a social media storm going on… and he said, ‘I’m sorry if I caused it, but I didn’t see the incident.'”
