Ex-Formula 1 champion Nico Rosberg is in disagreement with his former Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff over Red Bull’s protest against George Russell. Christian Horner’s team lodged the protests against Russell following the Brit’s victory in the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.
The appeal was as a result of Russell dropping back behind the Safety Car, accusing him of unsportsmanlike behaviour in trying to catch Max Verstappen out for overtaking. However, their protests were ultimately rejected, and while Wolff, 53, believes the origins of the protest didn’t come from the Red Bull star, 2016 world champ Rosberg isn’t so sure. Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, the German was of the opinion that Verstappen, 27, could have orchestrated the protest out of anger. The Dutch racer is just a penalty point shy from a one-race suspension after accumulating 11 points in the last year. Rosberg thinks that Verstappen will have viewed Russell’s actions as having intent and carried out in a bid to have him banned.
“The fact that Red Bull appealed, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was pushed by Max,” Rosberg said. “Because Max got angry that George hit the brakes and tried to get him into a penalty situation.
“So Max was like, ‘I’m not having that,’ and asked his team to appeal to try and get George into trouble. It wouldn’t surprise me, so we’re seeing the cat and mouse games continue, which is great.”
However, Wolff maintained that Verstappen was not the mastermind behind the incident. “What is it all about? Who decides it? Because I’m 100% sure it’s not Max, he’s a racer. He would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing,” Wolff recently said at the Premiere of the new F1 movie.
The Mercedes chief also urged the FIA to rethink its processes. “First of all, it took team Red Bull Racing two hours before they launched the protest, so that was in their doing. Honestly, it’s so petty and so small,” he fumed.
Russell’s actions were challenged by the Red Bull team (Image: Getty)
“They’ve done it in Miami. Now they lodged two protests. They took one back because it was ridiculous. They come up with some weird ISC clauses – sporting code clauses.
“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.”
While the first protest was rejected soon after, the second took five and a half hours after the flag had been waved to be thrown out, which irked the German chief. “One of them they actually pulled as a protest, they didn’t even follow it through because it was nonsense,” Wolff added.
“The second one took us five hours because I don’t even know what you refer to as ‘unsportsmanlike behavior’ or something.” Red Bull team principal Horner told Sky Sports that he felt just in approaching the stewards. “No, absolutely not [got any regrets],” Horner said.
Rosberg thinks Verstappen may have been angry and forced the protests (Image: Getty)
“I mean, it’s a team’s right to do so. You know, 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.”
The drama at the Canadian Grand Prix was not the first instance of bad blood between Red Bull and Mercedes this season. Verstappen purposely crashed into Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix, ultimately landing him with three penalty points, putting him on the brink of a ban.
The four-time world champion will continue to walk a fine line at the Austrian Grand Prix next week, with two of his 11 points set to expire at the end of the month before the British GP.
