Toto Wolff reflects on an action packed Austrian Grand Prix and the heavily discussed incident which allowed Russell to nab the team’s first victory of the 2024 season.
The Austrian Grand Prix will go down as one to remember for the Mercedes team, with George Russell nabbing the team’s first victory since Brazil in 2022. Capitalising on a lap 64 collision between then race leader Max Verstappen and a chasing Lando Norris, Russell cruised to victory just shy of 2 seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri.
Speaking after the action packed Grand Prix on Sunday, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff reflected on the team’s performance as well as the incident which allowed Russell to claim his second career victory in Formula 1 and with the Mercedes team.
“I think, you know, we all were trying to be rational and it was, we were on route for P3, and that is where the base of the car was, and what George was able to extract, and that was a solid result.
“Then, obviously, you see these two in the front, driving each other hard and well, we know they are really good friends, and that was fun to watch. This is how I perceived it at that stage. Then it got a bit more fierce, and at a certain stage we said, well, it would be possible that they collide, and then it literally happened, both of them with a puncture. We couldn’t believe what we saw.”
The incident between Verstappen and Norris saw some fans as well as people in the media calling the three time champion’s driving standards into question, and drawing parallels to the hard racing shown between the Dutchman and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton during the hard-fought 2021 season.
Wolff was asked if he believed harsher policing of the rules during the 2021 season would have impacted Verstappen’s driving in battle during Sunday’s Grand Prix. Wolff explains he finds it hard to associate the two examples due to the change in circumstances from 2021 to 2024.
“I don’t think you can take this conclusion,” Wolff replied. “From our side, we’re in a different place today, and I think [Verstappen] is [too]. It takes two to tango.
“I haven’t seen the race, to be honest. I haven’t seen Lando’s and Max’s race. I haven’t seen how all of that came about. I first need to watch it before having an opinion, but I didn’t see that as a big consequence of 2021 not having been managed well to what has happened in 2024. I don’t think there’s a correlation.”
