Toto Wolff shocks F1 reporters with Jeffrey Epstein comment | F1 | Sport
Toto Wolff left journalists shocked with an ill-judged comment about disgraced paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It came as the Mercedes chief fumed at more “utter bull****” claims from Formula 1 rivals about the legality of his team’s engines heading into the new season.
Engine manufacturers will vote in the coming days over whether to allow Mercedes to use their new engines beyond August 1 this year, after the Silver Arrows found a way to increase the compression ratio limit when heated up through use. And now there are reports which claim that the fuel they want to use, created by title sponsor Petronas, has yet to be signed off by the FIA.
But when that was brought up in yesterday’s press conference in Bahrain, where pre-season testing concludes today, Wolff fumed: “Another nonsense. This is a complicated topic and the process, and all of this, but there’s just not… I can’t even comment. This is another of these stories. We were told compression ratio is something where we were illegal, which is total bull****. Utter bull****, and now the next story comes up that our fuel is illegal?
“I don’t know where that comes from and it starts spinning again. Maybe tomorrow we’re inventing something else? I don’t know, I’ve been on the Epstein files, God knows what.” That last comment sparked visible shock among reporters, prompting Wolff to ask: “You’re not happy with me saying that, no?” Shortly after, he acknowledged: “Yeah, I mustn’t say that.”
The Austrian insists that the new Mercedes engines that will power not only his team but also McLaren, Williams and Alpine this year, are legal. Yet, he seemed indifferent about the prospect of losing the vote over whether they can use them all year. Wolff added: “For me, either way, it works. Either we stay with the regulations like we are or the vote goes ahead on Friday with the proposal that came from FIA. Both okay for us.
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“We said it all along that this looks like a storm in a teacup, the whole thing. Numbers were coming up and if these numbers would have been through [the roof], I absolutely understand why somebody would fight it, but eventually it’s not worth the fight. It doesn’t change anything for us, whether we stay like this or whether we change to the new regulations and that’s been a process.”
In the same press conference, McLaren chief executive Zak Brown was also unconcerned as he said: “Ultimately, the governance of sport is very strong. It’s passed all the tests so we’re not worried about it. Whatever great engine Mercedes produces, we’ll put in the back of our car and race with it.”
And Frederic Vasseur, team principal at Ferrari who have been pushing for Mercedes’ engines to be banned, added: “We don’t have a clear decision today. It means that it’s quite difficult because we have to send the engine to Melbourne in two days’ time now, so that’s a challenge, but overall we have to trust the system.”
