Toto Wolff offered some words of wisdom to McLaren after team-mates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri collided for the first time at the Canadian Grand Prix. The pair are in the midst of a championship fight and Zak Brown previously said it was “inevitable” that they would come together at some point – much like Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg’s fractious 2016 season.
Wolff joked that he’s “seen the movie” before after watching Norris crash out in a desperate attempt to squeeze past his teammate, who’s leading the championship.
“I was right in there as an actor,” he said, referring to the heated championship battle in 2016 that saw Rosberg emerge victorious by just five points. “It’s difficult because it’s what drivers are calibrated and conditioned to do: win championships. Particularly in Formula 1.”
The Mercedes team boss said that McLaren will need to “establish the rules” early on if it hopes to keep its drivers in line.
“That’s the trick here. Establish how do you want to go about it,” he explained. “It obviously increases the complexity if the constructor championship is in your hands too because [the team] could always argue, ‘well, we need to win the constructor championship. We need to score these points.’
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images via Getty Images
“But in that case, they are so far ahead that it’s not even a question whether they will win that. So, it’s certainly a tricky situation.”
The biggest difference between McLaren’s current predicament and the 2016 battle, however, is the disposition of the drivers involved.
“The characters are very different than they were with us,” Wolff said. “And it’s about strong management to learn that. But we learned it by doing it and I’m sure that these guys will get on top of that.”
Both Norris and Piastri have been outspoken about maintaining a positive relationship, no matter how competitive the season gets on-track. The Brit, who is now 22 points behind his Aussie rival, was quick to admit fault for the collision on Sunday, and said he regretted letting the team down.
“I’m sorry,” he said over team radio. “All my bad. All my fault. Stupid from me.”
He later doubled down on his self-criticism. “I let them down like this and when I make a fool of myself in a moment like today, I have a lot of regret,” he said.
“Our rule number one is to not make contact with your team-mate and it’s what I did. McLaren is my family. I race for them, you know, every single weekend. I try and do well for them, more than I often try and do well for myself.”
“That’s for me always the worst feeling. So, of course, I only really need to apologise to all of them and Oscar as well. He’s not going to be happy altogether with what happened. I wouldn’t be either if it was the other way around, you know. So, again, I owe him an apology for taking such a risk. He raced me fairly until that point and close and that’s what you want.”
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