Martin Brundle has labelled Toto Wolff ‘flippant’ after the Mercedes team principal claimed that he has no regrets over Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification from the United States Grand Prix and that he would be happy to risk it again and fight for the win on sprint weekends.
Hamilton finished just two seconds behind reigning world champion and eventual race winner Max Verstappen at the Circuit of the Americas but was disqualified along with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc after both cars failed routine inspections later on Sunday.
These disqualifications were partially caused by the sprint format with the singular practice session preventing teams from fully figuring out an optimal set-up for the weekend’s running. This has triggered a wider debate about the future of sprint races in F1.
“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’.
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“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.
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“Cheating is too strong a word… found to be outside of the regulations. But, you know, some teams lifted their cars to be certain because it was a Sprint weekend because it was bumpy, drivers taking kerbs, talk of a headwind pushing the cars down a little bit more even on the back straight.”
The legendary broadcaster then suggested that Mercedes’ violation of the technical regulations may be more clear cut than they are letting onto, adding: “And I don’t believe that Mercedes was illegal by just a small amount, it was a reasonable chunk.”
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