James Vowles sent mid-race text to Toto Wolff to apologise for F1 tactics

Williams team principal James Vowles sent a text message to his former boss Toto Wolff in the middle of the Monaco Grand Prix to apologise for his Formula 1 squad’s tactics.

Williams drivers Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz purposefully drove slowly at the tight and twisty Circuit de Monaco to give each other enough buffer to make a pitstop and still come out in front.

This was in response to a similar strategy employed further up the road by Racing Bulls, which instructed Liam Lawson to drive slowly so Isack Hadjar could complete both his mandatory pitstops without losing too many positions.

Williams’ antics, while controversial and not universally approved, worked as intended, allowing the British squad to score another double finish in Monte Carlo.

However, this compromised the chances of Vowles’ former team Mercedes, with George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli finishing outside the points in 11th and 18th respectively.

Russell was furious after being held back by Albon and passed him by driving straight the Nouvelle chicane, earning himself a drive-through penalty.

Incredibly, he came out ahead of Albon after serving the sanction, but slipped back behind when he finally got a chance to complete his pitstop.

Following the race, Wolff read out a text from Vowles, who previously worked as Mercedes’ chief strategist: ‘I'm sorry. We had no choice given what happened ahead’

Wolff was understanding of Vowles’ predicament and replied with a simple: 'We know' message.

Asked if he appreciated Vowles sending him a message, Wolff said: "You know, James is one of my guys, and I don't want to sound patronising, because he's making a career as a team principal, and he's doing really well.

"He had to do it, you know, he's [got] two cars in the points. I think what started it was these RBs that backed us back off, and that's what he had to do."

New Monaco pitstop rule in the spotlight

Teams were forced to come up with unusual strategies after F1 made it mandatory for all drivers to pit twice at Monaco.

The move was aimed at spicing up the show and creating some jeopardy, but Sunday’s race showed that the new rule wasn’t free of loopholes.

Wolff believes the two-stop rule needs to be fine-tuned for next year, while adding that the organisers need to again look at tweaking the layout to create more opportunities for overtaking.

“What we can look at is to create some more specific regulations that there's only a maximum of back-off that you can have,” he said.

"You know, you can't hold up a train, overtaking here is difficult, because you can't go slower than X seconds from the leaders. That would probably create a little bit more of a closer field. Does it improve the overtaking?

"I don't think that's feasible. We need to talk also with maybe [Monaco organisers] ACM here, and say, is there anything we can change on the layout? Difficult in a city, we're limited by a mountain and the sea. But you know, I see the positives. This is an unbelievable spectacle."