Toto Wolff has slammed Red Bull’s late protest against George Russell at the Canadian Grand Prix as “petty” and “embarrassing.”
Russell, who started on pole, fended off the challenge of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen behind him to win the Montreal race, claiming his fourth F1 win and Mercedes’s first victory of the season.
Yet around 90 minutes after the chequered flag, Red Bull launched a two-pronged protest against Russell for potential safety car infringements. The stewards took no further action, though confirmation only came five-and-a-half hours after the end of the race.
Speaking at the world premiere of the F1 Movie in New York, Mercedes F1 boss Wolff labelled the protest from Red Bull, led by arch rival Christian Horner, as “ridiculous.”
"First of all, it took team Red Bull Racing two hours before they launched the protest, so that was in their doing,” he told Sky Sports News. “You know, honestly, it's so petty and so small.
"They've done it in Miami. Now they launched two protests. They took one back because it was ridiculous.
"They come up with some weird clauses, what they call clauses. I guess the FIA needs to look at that because it's so farfetched it was rejected.
"You know, you race, you win and you lose on track. That was a fair victory for us, like so many they had in the past. And it's just embarrassing."
However, Wolff believed that Verstappen would not have been the one to pursue a protest.
“One of them they actually pulled as a protest, they didn't even follow it through because it was nonsense,” Wolff added.
"The second one took us five hours because I don't even know what you refer to as 'unsportsmanlike behaviour' or something.
“What is it all about? Who decides it? Because I'm 100 per cent sure it's not Max, he's a racer.
"He would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing."
Russell’s win has narrowed the gap to championship leader Oscar Piastri to 62 points after 10 races. The next race is the Austrian Grand Prix on 27-29 June.
George Russell keeps Canadian GP victory over Max Verstappen after late Red Bull protest
Lando Norris has completely lost his mojo – McLaren F1 star needs quick fix to downward spiral
Lewis Hamilton runs over animal in ‘horrible’ incident at Canadian GP
Russell hopes Norris and Piastri ‘keep throwing away points’ in F1 title race
Russell keeps Canadian GP victory over Verstappen after late Red Bull protest
Lewis Hamilton runs over animal in ‘horrible’ incident at Canadian GP
