Toto Wolff criticizes Red Bull over McLaren cheating insinuations

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff criticised Red Bull's stance, saying that when someone does a better job than you, you shouldn't look at them and say they're cheating because that's not the right attitude, believing that everything McLaren does is completely legal.

Mercedes couldn't keep up with the Woking team. Miami became a walk in the park for Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris when they managed to overtake Max Verstappen. From that point on, they had no competition. In the end, George Russell also managed to overtake the Dutchman and finish on the podium, after the virtual safety car worked in his favor. But the reality was that the gap was 37 seconds.

The reason to point the finger at McLaren and claim they were doing something illegal? For Toto Wolff, nothing could be further from the truth.

"I think the people around Zak [Brown], Andrea [Stella], Rob Marshall... are honest people with integrity. We've often said in the past: let's see if there's anything suspicious, but I have no doubts that these guys are not following the rules," the Mercedes boss told Dutch Racing News 365.

"It's just a very good development of the car. They've figured out how to manage the tires much better than others. And that's completely legitimate, in my opinion," he added.

Cheating

However, Red Bull does not believe in correctness. The Austrian team focused and continues to observe what McLaren is doing due to the big jump in performance during the last months, and it is McLaren who beat them in the constructors' standings. However, the head of Mercedes criticized their attitude and these doubts.

"And also, from a team leadership perspective, we should never ... when someone does a better job than you, we shouldn't look at it and say: they're cheating because that's definitely not the right approach," he argued.

"We simply have to improve, and at the end of the day, not to lose 30 or 35 seconds in 57 laps," concluded Toto Wolff.

All this happened after Red Bull filed a protest, considering that Russell did not slow down enough under the yellow flags. In fact, they were seen outside talking while the judges considered the case. But the FIA ​​eventually rejected the protest.