Toto Wolff showed he does not mince words when talking about some of his rivals’ race engineers after the chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix of Formula 1, which was heavily impacted by blue flag issues.
Read more F1: Vasseur laments Ferrari’s performance in Hungary: «We made many mistakes»
The race at Hungaroring was marked by a failure in the FIA system, with the electronic blue flag system malfunctioning throughout the 70 laps – this flag is used to alert backmarkers that a faster car is coming to overtake them.
As a result, race control had to rely primarily on marshals waving flags, which brought many close calls and cost time to the leading drivers. Oscar Piastri was involved in a collision with Carlos Sainz, while Kimi Antonelli lost time trying to pass Gabriel Bortoleto.
And the Mercedes boss did not let the issue pass, directing his criticism also at the teams’ engineers, comparing them to the Teletubbies, characters from a children’s show. “The fact that cars back there are defending themselves is simply unacceptable and an insufficient performance on our part,” he said.
Read more F1: Red Bull confirms ex-Mercedes as Marko’s successor in the Young Drivers Program
“And there is also the marshals’ signaling system that did not work. And cars back there defending against Lewis [Hamilton] and Kimi… I find it simply shameful on the part of some of those ‘Teletubbies’ engineers who stand on the pit walls of these teams, without informing the drivers what is happening behind them,” he continued.
“Overall, it is a day when I am not at all satisfied with the whole situation. But, when the dust settles, we will see that we are taking a solid lead in the drivers’ championship going into the summer break,” he concluded.
Read more F1: Hamilton talks about inconsistency in stewards’ penalties
