15/03/2015
NEWS STORY
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff hits out at Christian Horner after Red Bull boss calls on FIA to level the playing field.
His multi-championship winning team now on the back foot, Christian Horner did himself no favours today when he launched into an astonishing attack on rivals Mercedes.
Claiming that his team won titles despite the best efforts of the FIA to handicap it, Horner then called on the FIA to rein in Mercedes and level the playing field, warning that such domination as that witnessed this weekend will hurt the sport... the Briton seemingly having forgotten the periods of his team's domination in recent years indeed, domination that didn't even involve his drivers going all-out head-to-head..
"When we were winning, and we were never winning with an advantage that Mercedes has, double diffusers were banned, exhausts were moved, flexible bodywork was banned, engine mapping was changed mid-season, anything was done to pull us back," he moaned. "It was not just us, it was done to McLaren and Williams in other years.
"Is it healthy to have a situation like this?" he insisted. "The FIA, within the rules, have an equalisation mechanism and that needs to be looked at," he demanded.
At Mercedes, Toto Wolff was having none of it.
"If you try to beat each other and perform at the highest level and then you need equalisation after the first race, you cry out after the first race, that's not how we've done things in the past," he said.
"I think, 'just get your f****** head down, work hard and try to sort it out'." He continued, quickly explaining, referring to Horner, "I didn't mean the F-word in relation to him."
Asked if he feels the sport faces yet another season of politics, he shrugged and replied: "It is always a political season. It was last year and it is this year.
"There is this wall in Jerusalem that you can stand in front of and complain," he added. "Maybe the guys should go there."