Following two turbulent races, Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton have now caught Martin Brundle’s attention.
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, was called “flippant” by Martin Brundle after he stated that he has no regrets about Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification from the US Grand Prix and that he would be willing to take a chance and compete for the win on sprint weekends.
At the Circuit of the Americas, Hamilton finished just two seconds behind eventual race winner and reigning world champion Max Verstappen. However, he and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc were disqualified after their cars failed routine inspections later on Sunday.
The sprint format contributed to some of these disqualifications because teams were unable to fully determine an ideal setup for the weekend’s running due to the one practice session. This has led to a more extensive discussion regarding the future of F1 sprint races.
“The problem with the Sprint races is your car goes into parc ferme and you can’t adjust it anymore,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1 ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix. “Going into Saturday we thought, ‘hmm, that could be on the limit but probably with a little bit of a margin’.
“I would take the disqualification running for a race win and seeing the performance, rather than ending P3 and 25 seconds adrift. Every day of the week I would take the disqualification.”
These were bold comments from the Austrian who heads into the Mexican GP as a frustrated man. Hamilton has failed to score in back-to-back races, costing Mercedes dearly in their fight with Ferrari for second place in the Constructor Championship.
Responding to the comments of the Mercedes boss, Brundle was unimpressed. He told Sky Sports F1: “Absolutely not. I think Toto is being a flippant there. Toto and Lewis have done a very good job this weekend of saying nothing to see here, look at all those others they must have been cheating as well or whatever.
The word “cheating” is too strong and has been determined to be unconstitutional. However, given that it was a Sprint weekend and there were bumps in the road, drivers hitting curbs, and there were rumors of a headwind slowing the cars down even on the back straight, some teams raised their cars just to be safe.
“And I don’t believe that Mercedes was illegal by just a small amount, it was a reasonable chunk,” the legendary broadcaster continued, raising the possibility that Mercedes’ violation of the technical regulations may be more obvious than they are letting on.
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