Toto Wolff has reignited his war of words with Formula 1 rival Christian Horner after branding Red Bull’s latest protest ‘petty’.
The Mercedes team boss hit out at his F1 counterpart for challenging the result of George Russell’s win at Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.
Russell’s win in Canada was Mercedes’ first of the 2025 seasonGettyRed Bull alleged that the Silver Arrows driver had broken regulations in the remaining laps of the race in Montreal.
Horner’s team claimed Russell, who was leading, had driven erratically and committed unsportsmanlike conduct behind the Safety Car.
As a result, their driver in second, Max Verstappen, momentarily overtook Russell, which is a breach of FIA rules.
Both F1 stars complained on the team radio that the other was at fault, with Red Bull making two protests after the race.
The first claimed Russell had driven erratically, and the second was around the distance between the Brit driver and the safety car — which they later withdrew because the 27-year-old was complying with another rule.
It followed another Red Bull protest that Russell had failed to sufficiently slow under yellow flags en route to finishing a place above Verstappen in third at the Miami Grand Prix.
“First of all, it took team Red Bull Racing two hours before they launched the protest, so that was in their doing. You know, honestly, it’s so petty and so small,” Wolff told Sky Sports in New York at the launch of the new F1 movie.
“They’ve done it in Miami. Now they launched two protests. They took one back because it was ridiculous.
“They come up with weirdo IC clauses, sporting code causes. I guess the FIA needs to look at that because it’s so far-fetched it was rejected.
“You race, you win and you lose on track. That was a fair victory for us, like so many they had in the past. And it’s just embarrassing.”
Verstappen and Russell were all smiles on the podiumGetty But the pair were then both sent to the stewardsGettyRussell himself described the protest as ‘a bit of a faff for everybody’, with the final race classification arriving at 9:10pm local time.
The delay meant that two members of staff missed their flights back to England on Sunday, with the race ending at 3:35pm in Canada.
Asked if Red Bull’s protests should have been dismissed quicker, Wolff added: “One of them they actually pulled as a protest, they didn’t even follow it through because it was nonsense.
“The second one took us five hours because I don’t even know what you refer to as ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’ or something. What is it all about? Who decides it? Because I’m 100 per cent sure it’s not Max, he’s a racer.
“He would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing.”
The protest has become another chapter in Russell and Verstappen’s ongoing and increasingly vitriolic rivalry.
Red Bull have twice challenged results where Russell beat Verstappen this yearGettyVerstappen delivered the first barb of the F1 feud when he called his rival a ‘d***head’ after their cars came together in Azerbaijan in 2023.
Things truly exploded last season when an incident in Qatar qualifying instigated an explosion in the media.
Verstappen called Russell ‘two-faced’ and alleged he tried to manipulate the stewards into a penalty, while the latter responded by calling the Dutchman a ‘bully’.
However, Horner confirmed on Sunday evening that the protest was a team decision made by Red Bull rather than their star man’s idea.
“No, absolutely not [no regrets],” Horner said. “I mean, it’s a team’s right to do so. We saw something we didn’t think was quite right.
“You have the ability to put it in front of the stewards, and so that’s what we chose to do. Absolutely no regrets in that.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff criticised Red Bull’s post-race behaviour in MontrealGettyThe rivalry between Russell and Verstappen has pitted Mercedes against Red Bull again, who infamously clashed in the 2021 season.
Former F1 team principal Gunther Steiner joined talkSPORT on Tuesday to discuss how the growing tension was good for the sport.
He told talkSPORT Breakfast: “Yeah, I think it’s good. It all started in Barcelona when Max drove into George Russell at the end of the race and then got a penalty of 10 seconds. But he did not do it on purpose, but it was not unpurposely [sic]. So, it’s something between.
“So, it started there, and obviously, the next race, George Russell beats Max Verstappen to pole position. Max didn’t like that.
“There’s a bit of rivalry, but it’s always good as long as it stays fair.
“And it seems to be staying fair so far because at the start in Canada, it was all fair and square.”
PosDriverNationalityCarPts1Oscar PiastriAUSMcLaren1982Lando NorrisGBRMcLaren1763Max VerstappenNEDRed Bull Racing1554George RussellGBRMercedes1365Charles LeclercMONFerrari1046Lewis HamiltonGBRFerrari797Kimi AntonelliITAMercedes638Alexander AlbonTHAWilliams429Esteban OconFRAHaas2210Isack HadjarFRARacing Bulls21 Read More Details
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