Home » Sport » Wolff: ‘We would almost certainly have won the protest against GP Abu Dhabi’

Wolff: ‘We would almost certainly have won the protest against GP Abu Dhabi’

After Max Verstappen won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – and therefore the world title – the outcome of the Formula 1 season was uncertain for a while. Mercedes announced after the race that it might still file a protest. In the end, the stable decided not to protest, although they almost certainly won a lawsuit, according to their own words.

After the season finale, team boss Toto Wolff looked at the options with an army of lawyers. “We believe we had a very strong case,” he says in conversation with, among others, RacingNews365. “And if you look at the judicial side and the case was judged in a normal court, it was almost certain that we would win.”

Instead of a formal case, there is now a major investigation into the actions of the FIA. Mercedes wants to play a prominent role in this to see what exactly went wrong in Abu Dhabi and how a similar situation can be prevented in the future.

Problems with the ‘FIA Supreme Court’

Wolff expresses his dissatisfaction with the structure within the FIA. If a case is made against the outcome of the Abu Dhabi GP, it will be a matter for the International Court of Appeal (ICA). “The problem with the ICA is how the structure is. The FIA ​​cannot do its own homework and there is a big difference in getting it right and getting justice,” said the Mercedes team principal.

“So there’s a lesson we need to learn: how are we going to make sure that, in the future, the right choices are made in these situations?” Wolff emphasizes that it was not a ‘bad call’ from the FIA ​​in the closing stages of the Abu Dhabi GP, but a bigger problem. “It was more like freestyling reading the rules. Lewis was a sitting duck because of this.”

Verstappen won the race, and thus the World Cup, because the safety car came in one lap before the end of the season-closing race. The Dutchman was able to overtake his title rival with fresher tires relatively easily, much to the dissatisfaction of Mercedes. Since then, the confidence of the German racing stable in the FIA ​​has been hard to find.

– .

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.