Wolff blasts Red Bull figure over 'brainless' Antonelli accusation
Toto Wolff slams Helmut Marko for accusations he levelled against Kimi Antonelli.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has hit out at Red Bull’s Helmut Marko for accusing Kimi Antonelli of deliberately letting Lando Norris past in the Qatar Grand Prix.
Antonelli ran wide at Turn 9 in the closing stages of Sunday evening’s race in Doha and gifted fourth place to championship leader Norris, who claimed two points that could prove crucial in the title race.
The McLaren driver heads Max Verstappen by 12 points heading into next weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, while teammate Oscar Piastri is 16 points behind amid a three-way title battle that is going down to the wire.
With every point critical at this stage of the season, Red Bull made some pretty wild claims about Antonelli, whose Mercedes team supply McLaren with engines.
"Bless him, Helmut. This is total, utter nonsense that blows my mind even to hear that,” Wolff said when informed about Marko’s accusations towards Antonelli.
“We’re fighting for P2 in the championship, which is important for us. Kimi's fighting for a potential P3 [in the race]. I mean, how brainless can you be to even say something like this?
“And it annoys me, because I'm annoyed with the race itself, how it went. I'm annoyed with the mistake at the end. I'm annoyed with other mistakes. And then hearing such nonsense blows my mind.”
Wolff ‘cleared the air’ with Verstappen’s engineer
Race winner Verstappen’s engineer Gianpiero Lambiase also raised eyebrows by appearing to suggest Antonelli had “let Norris through” in a team radio exchange with his driver.
Mercedes team principal Wolff revealed he had spoken to Lambiase to clear the air over a comment he put down to being in the heat of the moment.
"I spoke to GP. I saw him, and obviously, he was emotional in that moment, because they needed one position, I guess, to [help] win the championship. Now they need more,” Wolff explained.
"And I said to him, he just went off. He had a bit of a moment in the previous corner, and then had less entry speed into that left-hander, put the gas down and had that moment, which can happen, that lost the position. So with GP, everything's clear. Cleared the air. He said he didn't see the situation.
"Why would we do this? Why would we even think about interfering in a driver championship? I mean, you really need to check yourself whether you see ghosts. I said to GP that there's quite a social media storm and GP said, 'Sorry if I caused that.'"
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