Red Bull were “petty” in their attempt to protest George Russell’s Canadian Grand Prix victory, Toto Wolff adamant he cannot see “racer” Max Verstappen agreeing to such a ploy.

Following their Spanish Grand Prix clash, in which Verstappen was given a 10-second time penalty and three points on his Super Licence for having ‘undoubtedly caused’ the late-race collision with Russell, the two were at it again in Montreal.

Toto Wolff was not impressed with Red Bull’s antics

Russell lined up on pole position ahead of Verstappen, with the Red Bull driver just one point away from an automatic race ban under F1’s 12-month penalty points system.

However, the much-talked-about lap 1 fireworks didn’t materialise. Instead, the flashpoint came late in the race.

Running first and second behind the Safety Car, which was deployed when Lando Norris rear-ended Oscar Piastri, Russell hits the brakes hard and Verstappen, caught unaware, went sailing past him.

Russell jumped on the team radio to state that Verstappen had overtaken him behind the Safety Car, with the reigning World Champion quickly onto Red Bull to defend his actions.

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Although the stewards took no action against Verstappen for overtaking behind the Safety Car, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called out what he perceived as Russell’s “objective” and Red Bull launched a protest.

The team claimed that Russell had breached Article 55.5 of the Sporting Regulations, about unnecessarily braking and erratically behind the Safety Car, as well as alleging that Russell had breached Article 12.2.1.m of the International Sporting Code (ISC) by complaining Verstappen had overtaken him under Safety Car conditions, related to unsporting behaviour by way of displaying ‘unsportsmanlike intent’.

The FIA stewards rejected the protest as being without foundation.

Wolff says it was nothing more than a “petty” and “embarrassing” ploy from Red Bull.

“First of all, it took team Red Bull Racing two hours before they launched the protest, so that was in their doing. You know, honestly, it’s so petty and so small,” he told Sky Sports.

“They’ve done it in Miami. Now they launched two protests. They took one back because it was ridiculous.

“They come up with some weird clauses, what they call clauses. I guess the FIA needs to look at that because it’s so far-fetched, it was rejected.

“You know, you race, you win and you lose on track. That was a fair victory for us, like so many they had in the past. And it’s just embarrassing.”

But for Red Bull, not for Verstappen.

Wolff, a friend of the Verstappen family, says he cannot see Verstappen having consented to the protest as the four-time World Champion is a racer.

“One of them they actually pulled as a protest, they didn’t even follow it through because it was nonsense,” he continued.

“The second one took us five hours because I don’t even know what you refer to as ‘unsportsmanlike behaviour’ or something. What is it all about? Who decides it? Because I’m 100 per cent sure it’s not Max, he’s a racer.

“He would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing.”

As for Red Bull, Horner insists it was the right thing to do despite the stewards’ ruling.

“No, absolutely not [no regrets],” he said. “I mean, it’s a team’s right to do so. You know, we saw something we didn’t think was quite right. You have the ability to put it in front of the stewards and so that’s what we chose to do. Absolutely no regrets in that.”

Verstappen had little to say about Russell’s actions behind the Safety Car when he spoke with Sky Sports after the race, in fact defending his rival in what he called a moment of “confusion”.

“I think we were both trying to say to the Safety Car to speed up because he was only going 120 kilometres an hour, but I think maybe the Safety Car was doing that to give a bit more time to maybe get a race start in,” he said.

“So then I think George was trying to speed up to the Safety Car. I was trying to do the same. And then, once he tried to speed up the Safety Car, he then backed out, and it just caused a bit of confusion.”

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