“If you try to play the ball, you might hit your opponent”– Toto Wolff takes a U-turn on statements made on Max Verstappen recently.
After The FIA charged Max Verstappen for colliding with Lewis Hamilton in Monza, Toto Wolff attacked the Dutchman and his team for ruining their race.
But a week later, the Mercedes boss has made a u-turn and name it under the name of risk-taking, contradicting his previous statements, which were demanding accountability from Verstappen.
“If someone sees that the ball is going towards the goal, then the opponent is also willing to take a risk sometimes,” said Wolff. “If you try to play the ball, you might hit your opponent. That to me is an intentional foul.”
Earlier, Wolff even made a statement claiming that till when F1 will not witness other drivers preventing their opponents from winning the races.
The perspective
But with the recent statements, Wolff accepts that Verstappen didn’t crash with hamilton deliberately; instead, the degree of the risk made it inevitable.
“Everyone will have their own perspective on this. It shouldn’t be a fixed statement. It really doesn’t seem that way to me,” he added. This is not the first time when the two title protagonists crashed into each other.
They even collided during the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, which made only Verstappen retire from the race after suffering a 51g crash. Unlike Verstappen, Hamilton got a 10-second penalty for his violation in Silverstone.
“In Silverstone, we were quiet in the end as well. There were no fireworks after the race. I think everyone recognised that there was no point in going in very hard,” he concluded.
Verstappen will be serving a three-place grid penalty in Russia next week, while there may be a possibility of Red Bull even picking an engine penalty.
