Did Toto Wolff and James Vowles have a pit lane showdown after Williams held up Mercedes at the Monaco Grand Prix?

Mercedes’ chief communications officer Bradley Lord has offered some clarity on the situation.

Mercedes clarifies supposed Vowles v Wolff argument

New for the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix was a regulation that mandated all drivers complete two pit stops during the event in hopes of shaking up the running order — but many teams quickly found a loophole.

Williams was one such team; early on in the race, it determined that it could use its lower-qualified driver to slow the pace of the cars behind, allowing the higher-qualified driver to build up a strong on-track gap. That gap allowed the driver to pit without any significant loss of positions — and the driver with fresh tyres could return the favor.

But for the Mercedes drivers trapped behind the Williams duo, that strategy was infuriating. In fact, George Russell took matters into his own hands by cutting a chicane in order to bypass Alex Albon, telling his engineer that he’d take the penalty.

After the race, it appeared as if Vowles and Wolff were exchanging heated words, with Wolff yelling down from over the garage area to Vowles who was on pit lane.

Fans were quick to screenshot the exchange, speculating about what had gone on and whether or not the relationship between to two team principals had turned sour.

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But according to Bradley Lord in the Mercedes post-Monaco debrief, much ado had been made about nothing.

“I was messaging Toto yesterday saying it would be really brilliant if it were a real argument,” Lord said.

“And I just can’t imagine him and James actually having that happen. I’ve seen some stuff on the Internet as well, comparing it to Toto’s reaction in Saudi in 2021. It looks superficially similar.

“I was standing there next to that one as well, and I can certainly confirm it was nothing like that at all. And it was simply just, oh, thanks very much… thanks for the team play.

“And there was nothing else we could do.

“And I think as Toto explained afterwards, James had already messaged to say, sorry, we had to play the team game.

“And he’s absolutely right. They did. It gave them two points finishes. And it’s exactly the sort of thing we’d have been contemplating doing had we been in the position to make it work for both drivers.

“And indeed, it is exactly what we did with George and Kimi to give George that P11 rather than P17 or P18 as Kimi ended up finishing.”

And as Lord mentioned, Wolff did in fact address the situation in the post-race press conference with media, including PlanetF1.com.

“He sent me a text, in the race,” Wolff said of Vowles. “‘I’m sorry, we had no choice given what happened ahead’.

“I answered: ‘We know’.

“James is one of my guys, and I don’t want to sound patronising because he is making a career as a team principal and is doing really well. He had to do it.

“It’s two cars in the points and I think where it started was the Visa RBs backed us off and that’s what he had to do.”

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