Toto Wolff was somewhat baffled after Max Verstappen drove deliberately into George Russell in the Spanish Grand Prix, calling the whole situation “incomprehensible.”
Verstappen was given a 10-second time penalty by the stewards, demoting him from fifth to tenth, for ramming into Russell in the closing stages of Sunday’s race in Barcelona. Verstappen was also given three penalty points on his licence, meaning he is one point away from a race ban.
Mercedes boss Wolff, who has made no secret of his past interest in signing four-time F1 world champion Verstappen for the Silver Arrows, was confused by the situation in which the Dutchman was originally told by his engineer to allow Russell through.
“So I just heard actually that Max had the call to let him past, right?” Wolff said. “We were under the impression in the race that he had a problem with the car, and that’s why he was so slow getting out of [turn] four.
“I mean, if it was road rage, which I can’t imagine, because it was too obvious, that is not good. But the thing is I don’t know what he aimed for.
“Did he want to let George past, and immediately re-pass? Put the car, George the car ahead, and then like the old DRS games, letting him past at the right way?
“Or… for me, it’s just incomprehensible. But again, I don’t know exactly what the motivations were and I don’t want to judge on it and say this was road rage, etc. Let’s see what his arguments are. It wasn’t nice.”
As shown by his 11 penalty points, Verstappen has in recent times squabbled aggressively with cars on track, with notable incidents involving Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri last season.
Further back, Verstappen was involved in numerous controversial incidents with Lewis Hamilton during the pair’s memorable title battle in 2021.
“There’s a pattern that the great ones, whether it’s in motor racing or in other sports, you just need to have the world against you, and then perform at the highest possible levels,” Wolff added.
“And that’s why sometimes these greats don’t recognize that actually the world is not against you, you have made a mistake, or you have screwed up, etc etc. And we haven’t seen any of these moments with Max for many years now.
“The year 2021, that happened, and I don’t know where it comes from.”
Verstappen now trails championship leader Oscar Piastri by 49 points after nine rounds. The next race is in Canada on 15 June.
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