Toto Wolff: Christian Horner's protest ‘petty and embarrassing'

Telegraph

8 hours ago

Toto Wolff has described Red Bull's post-race protest against George Russell on Sunday night following his Canadian Grand Prix victory as 'petty' and 'embarrassing'.
Russell, 27, won the fourth race of his career in Montréal, holding off Verstappen for 70 laps. But there was controversy afterwards, with Russell's driving behind a late safety car challenged by Red Bull.
Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal, effectively accused Russell of brake-testing his man, trying to 'goad' the four-time world champion into giving away a penalty which would have triggered an automatic race suspension.
Verstappen has 11 penalty points on his race licence, one short of a ban, following his collision with Russell in Barcelona a few weeks ago and Russell had joked before the race that he had 'more points to play with' than Verstappen should they get tangled up again.
Horner claimed in his post-race media session that Russell 'clearly looked for Max in his mirrors before braking very heavily' and also accused the Briton of falling 'three times in excess of the permitted distance' behind the safety car.
Is this why Red Bull are protesting against George Russell's Canadian GP victory? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/SYgpOzdmDi
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) June 15, 2025
Five hours after the race finished, the FIA finally confirmed Russell's victory, saying Red Bull's protests had been rejected on the grounds that the Englishman's braking was reasonable and he had not acted in an unsportsmanlike manner.
Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, was left unimpressed by his old adversary's actions, accusing Horner of doing a similar thing in Miami earlier this year when Red Bull accused Russell of failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags. That protest was also rejected.
'You know, honestly, it's so petty and so small,' said the Austrian, speaking at the launch of the new F1 movie in New York on Monday night. 'They've done it in Miami. Now they launched two protests. They took one back because it was ridiculous.
'They come up with some weird clauses, what they call clauses. I guess the FIA needs to look at that because it's so far-fetched it was rejected.
'You know, 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.'
Asked whether 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 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.'
It is unclear whether Verstappen agreed with Red Bull's course of action but earlier in the weekend he had declared himself 'p----- off' at what he termed 'childish' comments about his penalty points situation.
Horner, for his part, said he had 'no regrets' over lodging the protest, which was considered by a panel of stewards that did not include British ex-driver Derek Warwick who was suspended earlier in the Canadian Grand Prix weekend for making 'unauthorised' media comments about Verstappen.
'No, absolutely not,' Horner told Sky Sports F1. '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.'
🗣️ "It's a teams right to do so"
Christian Horner says he has 'no regrets' over challenging George Russell's Canadian GP win 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/6amTyVb33P
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) June 17, 2025
Horner promised the team would 'keep fighting until the very end' with Verstappen now 43 points behind McLaren's championship leader Oscar Piastri.
'We're not even halfway [through the season],' he said. 'We had a good weekend in Barcelona. We won obviously in Imola a few races ago, and as Sunday proved, anything can happen,' he said.
'You have just got to hang in there. It's a long championship. We don't give up on anything, keep fighting till the very end. If one person's going to do that, it's definitely going to be Max.'
Russell, who has still not signed a contract with Mercedes beyond the end of the season, described the protests as 'a waste of everybody's time', revealing that two team members missed their flights because of the lengthy delay. 'I think even Max didn't know there was a protest even going on,' he said. 'So I don't know what was going on, what they were thinking.'
Asked about Russell's contract situation, Wolff laughed. 'Don't spoil the evening!' he said. 'No, it's all on plan.'