Toto Wolff vented out his frustration at the Monaco GP Crane operator after Lewis Hamilton’s W14 was left exposed to the whole world. The crane operator picked up the damaged W14, which revealed the entire floor that Mercedes worked hard on, recently. As per Autosport, after the Monaco GP, the Austrian boss shared his thoughts on the matter.
Hamilton crashed in the penultimate minutes of the FP3 session and brought out the red flag. With the session stopped, the marshals came onto the track to clear it by removing the car. Soon, fans saw a huge crane lifting Hamilton’s car high up in the air at the Mirabeau sector.
As a result, the car was explicitly visible from the ground. And the entire work of James Allison and his team was left exposed. However, Mercedes wasn’t the only team suffering from similar problems on Saturday in Monaco. Red Bull too, were forced to have their car hung up for the whole world to see after Sergio Perez’s crash.
As the newly developed W14 was left exposed, it simply wasn’t an ideal situation for Lewis Hamilton and Wolff. The Silver Arrows, who are so badly in chase of the Red Bulls, might have just lost their plot to the rivals.
Red-faced Toto Wolff didn’t like the Crane action, at all
Speaking about it in the post-qualification interview, the Mercedes boss said, “Whoever performed the crane has probably worked for Cirque du Soleil.”
Cirque de Soleil is an entertainment company from Canada and it is the biggest contemporary circus in the world. The Austrian executive further added, “Honestly, that I don’t even comprehend.”
Brings a brand new floor, immediately gets it photographed, classic F1 pic.twitter.com/dH4NANGRbv
— Dan – EngineMode11 (@EngineMode11) May 27, 2023
Following this, the 51-year-old conveyed that the car was on the track, so it could be taken away by a truck. But instead, they decided to make a mess of it by hanging it on a crane.
However, expecting a possible outrage, the Silver Arrows honcho stated that he was joking about the crane operator. He also stated that the marshals were doing a very good job.
Red Bull faced the same fate as Mercedes and Hamilton
After Sergio Perez crashed his RB19 during Q1, Red Bull faced a similar situation to Mercedes. Instead of putting the Red Bull on the truck, the crane operator picked the car the same way he did it with Lewis Hamilton’s W14.
Following the back-to-back astonishing moves, the engineers at the Brackley and Milton-Keynes-based team must be really worried as their cars were on public display. F1 teams, especially the top ones, are very secretive about the design of their challengers. Hence, they were skeptical about this decision.
For Red Bull, having their secrets exposed was an even bigger worry. With its winning formula left for the world to see, Adrian Newey, the Chief Technical Officer of Red Bull, would be nothing but furious.
