‘I don’t think you can rely on what he says’ · RaceFans

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has criticised his Red Bull counterpart Christian Horner’s reaction to a short-lived FIA investigation concerning his team in December last year.

“I don’t think you can rely on what he says,” Wolff told The Guardian in an interview promoting a book about the Mercedes team.

Within the space of 48 hours last December, the FIA’s Compliance Department announced it was looking into an alleged conflict of interest between an F1 team principal and a member of Formula One Management, then declared no investigation was taking place. Wolff and his wife Susie Wolff, who is the CEO of all-female junior series F1 Academy, were understood to be the subject of the FIA probe.

The sudden conclusion to the investigation came one day after all nine of Mercedes’ rival F1 teams publicly declared they had raised no concerns regarding the team. Wolff said he was gratified by the speed with which his rivals, led by Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, organised their reaction.

“The response was great,” he said. “I didn’t make a single phone call to any team. Fred took it into his hands and said: ‘This is just so unfair’. From Guenther Steiner [Haas team principal at the time] to James Vowles [Mercedes’ former strategy chief who now runs Williams] everybody jumped on to this.”

However Wolff claimed Horner initially resisted putting his name to the same statement as the eight other teams. “They were all ready, but for Christian, to sign a document in our support,” he claimed.

“As far as I understand it he said: ‘I’m having my own Sky interview and I’m going to say I’m not part of it. I’m not signing the document.’ The other nine teams said: ‘Fine.’ But obviously he was advised that wouldn’t look great and he should be part of the statement.

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“In the second iteration, he tried to get the word ‘official’ in the statement. He wanted a note to say that no one [among the team principals] officially complained to the FIA. The other teams said: ‘Fine. We do our declaration and you do your own.’ At the end, he signed it.”

Susie Wolff said in March she is taking legal action in France “in relation to the statements made about me by the FIA last December.” Last week a report emerged that Paolo Basarri, the head of the FIA’s Compliance Division during its investigation of Mercedes, had left the governing body.

The rivalry…