Wolff, the head of Mercedes, and Red Bull principle Horner
sat side-by-side during a tense 30-minute media briefing that displayed the
full animosity between the two teams.
“It’s the world championship of the highest category in
motor racing,” Wolff said, “and what started as Olympic boxing went to pro
boxing and is now MMA. Elbows are allowed now because the rules say so, and the
gloves are off. Nothing else is to be expected.”
F1 moved this week to Losail for the inaugural Qatar Grand
Prix with the results of last week’s race still hanging over the championship
fight. Lewis Hamilton earned his 101st victory at the Brazilian GP to cut his
deficit to Verstappen to only 14 points with three races remaining.
Mercedes protested the decision not to penalize Verstappen
in Sao Paulo when the Red Bull driver ran Hamilton wide off course as the
seven-time champion attempted a pass for the lead. The FIA heard the appeal on
Thursday and then denied the Mercedes request as Horner and Wolff were in the
middle of Friday’s briefing.
Horner shrugged off Wolff, declaring “there is no
relationship” between the two. He also suggested the Mercedes team might be
cracking as Red Bull attempts to end its reign at the top of the series.
“I think it’s the first time they’ve been challenged. It’s
interesting to see how people react under pressure, how they react when they
are challenged,” Horner said. “It’s by far the most intense political title
fight we’ve been involved in in this sport.”
No relationship is one thing. But respect?
Horner said he appreciates what Mercedes has accomplished.
Same for Hamilton, who can pass Michael Schumacher with a record eight
championships if he can catch Verstappen over the next three races.
“But I don’t need to go to dinner with Toto. I don’t need to
kiss his (butt) or anything like that. There’s a few other team principles that
might,” Horner said. “Toto and I are very different characters and we operate
in very different ways. Am I going to be spending Christmas with Toto? Probably
not.”
Is there any chance at all for peace between the warring
teams? Wolff thinks not.
“I think the competition is just too high,” Wolff said. “You
cannot expect that you’re going to dinner with your rival or with a rival team
or your enemy in sporting competition, irrespective of personalities and the
characters.”
On the track, meanwhile, Verstappen topped the first
practice session and seemed quite comfortable on the on the 5.4-kilometer
(3.5-mile) circuit. Sunday’s race will be the first in a 10-year agreement
between F1 and Qatar.
The Dutchman was a sizeable .79-seconds faster than
Hamilton, who was fourth fastest in first practice.
Verstappen has won a career-high nine races this season to
put Hamilton on the ropes for the first time since 2016, when then-teammate
Nico Rosberg edged him by five points to win the title. Hamilton has won four
consecutive championships since losing to Rosberg.
Mercedes and Red Bull have been sparring all season — a
collision between the drivers on the first lap of the British Grand Prix sent
Verstappen to the hospital for precautionary reasons, and a crash between the
two at Monza led to Verstappen’s car landing on top of Hamilton’s head.
But it reached another level in Brazil. Mercedes was found
to have an illegal wing on Hamilton’s car, and Verstappen was caught on video
taken from the grandstands illegally touching the part after practice.
The drama built all weekend and when Verstappen wasn’t
penalized for running Hamilton wide, Mercedes erupted. Even though Hamilton won
the race, Mercedes protested the no-call in hopes that Verstappen would be
retroactively penalized. If the protest had been successful, Verstappen would
have been given a time penalty that would have dropped him from second to third
at the Brazilian GP and further tightened the title race.
Wolff said the ruling was “completely expected.”
“We wanted to trigger discussion around it because it
probably will be a theme,” Wolff said. “We didn’t think it would go any
further.”
Horner called it the right decision.
“Otherwise, it would have opened a Pandora’s box regarding a
whole bunch of other incidents that happened in that race,” Horner said. “I
think the most important thing now is to focus on this Grand Prix. We want a
good, clean, fair fight.” -AP
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