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Toto Wolff’s unwillingness to criticise Max Verstappen is being tested to its limit.
In little more than a month, Verstappen has been involved in no fewer than three post-race protests against Wolff’s driver George Russell – and collided with him during the Spanish Grand Prix.
Wolff has reacted carefully, slating the Red Bull team but sparing Verstappen from direct criticism. It’s not hard to imagine what’s behind this.
Russell’s current Mercedes deal expires at the end of this season and Verstappen is an obvious target for the team. Wolff indicated as much last year: “2026 is our main year where lots of things change and I think it could be quite attractive to drive with us. But whether it’s Max and whether he can get out of his contract, I don’t know.”
Verstappen is contracted to Red Bull until 2028, but as Wolff observed: “If a driver doesn’t want to stay somewhere, it’s very difficult to keep a driver.”
Wolff has missed a chance to sign Verstappen once before and does not want to say anything which might risk putting him off. He knows who he’s preparing his message for – and how carefully it must be crafted.
Any vaguely adverse comment is at risk of being misleadingly regurgitated out of context on social media and picked up by Verstappen. As was the case when he took McLaren’s Zak Brown to task over a six-month-old misquote in Las Vegas last year.
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Therefore, Wolff is not about to come down hard on Verstappen even for provoking contact with one of his cars. “I don’t even know what happened because I just heard that Max was told to let George pass and for me it looked odd that he didn’t make it proper out of turn four,” he prevaricated in Catalunya.
“So I need to see the whole situation, but if it was road rage, then it’s not good.”
Wolff’s assessment of Verstappen’s dodgier moves hasn’t always been this equivocal. When Verstappen took Hamilton out at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix he called it out as a “tactical foul”.
In Spain he chose softer words for a move that was more blatant if less destructive. But four years ago Wolff already had a multiple champion driving for him; today he’s courting one.
Following the latest skirmish between the two drivers in Canada, Wolff made it clear he blamed Red Bull alone for the post-race protests directed at Russell. “I’m 100% sure it’s not Max,” said Wolff. “He’s a racer. He would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing.”
Whether Verstappen supported Red Bull’s attempt to get a penalty for Russell, and therefore secure his fourth victory of the season, is a matter of conjecture. Verstappen drew Red Bull’s attention to both aspects of Russell’s driving upon which they later lodged protests in Canada. The same was true earlier this year in Miami. Between his comments in the car and his post-race comments to Sky, Verstappen offered different explanations for Russell’s actions.
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Wolff knows from past experience that if a driver doesn’t support a protest they are likely to make their feelings known. In 2016 Mercedes lodged a protest over a move Verstappen made on Hamilton, accusing the Red Bull driver of “[driving] erratically and in a dangerous manner, forcing car 44 [Lewis Hamilton] to take evasive action.” But Wolff’s driver was not impressed.
“There is no protest from either myself or Mercedes.” Hamilton initially announced in a social media post. “One idiot said we have but it’s not true. Max drove well, end of. We move on.”
After learning his team had indeed protested Verstappen, Hamilton deleted his original message and replaced it with one which said: “There is no protest from myself. Just heard the team had but I told them it is not what we do. We are [constructors’] champions, we move on. End of!”
Perhaps Verstappen had similar words with Red Bull which led them to withdraw one of its two protests against Russell on Sunday. The team dropped its claim the Mercedes driver violated the rules by dropping more than 10 car lengths behind the Safety Car.
However this was a straightforward matter of rules compliance which was never likely to result in a penalty for Russell. There was no doubt he was allowed to drop back from the Safety Car when he did. Red Bull’s other protest was a question of interpretation which could have gone either way.
But whether or not Verstappen was pushing for a penalty won’t affect his value to Mercedes. Even if he turns up in Austria and makes it clear Red Bull’s protest had his full backing, Wolff will find some way to smooth it over. Whether it pays off in the end is another matter.
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