The hostility between the Mercedes and Purple Bull camps was kicked up one other notch forward of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix when Mercedes staff principal Toto Wolff referred to his Purple Bull counterpart Christian Horner as a “yapping little terrier.”
Horner attributed the penalty handed out to Max Verstappen on the Qatar Grand Prix as being “extra primarily based on hysterics from George [Russell], who has been fairly hysterical this weekend,” That adopted Verstappen saying he had misplaced all respect for Russell because of the means he had lobbied for a punishment within the stewards’ room on Saturday night time.
Nevertheless, with Russell addressing the scenario for the primary time by claiming Verstappen had threatened to purposely crash into him, Wolff unexpectedly joined his driver throughout a media session in Abu Dhabi and said his perception that Horner has enabled Verstappen’s conduct.
“I feel as a staff principal, it’s vital to be a sparring accomplice in your drivers,” Wolff mentioned. “And meaning explaining that issues might be extra nuanced. Statements which might be absolute, considering that every part is both 100% proper or 100% fallacious, is one thing I simply assume you want to clarify. Consider extra nuance, relying in your notion and your perspective.
“You must enable for one thing to be 51-49; you want to enable for it to be 70-30. There may be at all times one other aspect. Perhaps while you take a look at it that means, and also you clarify it to your drivers and to your staff, you come to the conclusion that there’s fact on either side. In case you don’t do this, you’re falling wanting your position. It’s simply weak.
“On the finish, why does he [Horner] really feel entitled to remark about my driver? How does that come? However even desirous about it, I’ve spent 90 seconds to consider it… Yapping little terrier. At all times one thing to say.”
Wolff says he’s not eager on interfering between the 2 drivers as they every criticize one another for his or her conduct in Qatar, however that he needed to handle Horner’s feedback himself.
“I inform you clearly: There’s a factor between drivers, and that is George and Max, and I don’t wish to become involved in that, but when the opposite staff principal calls George hysteric, that is the place he crosses a line for me. Now, his forte for certain will not be mental psychoanalysis, however that’s fairly a phrase. How dare you touch upon the way of thinking of my driver.”
