The wingman gate has gone a little further than expected with social media ablaze with fans commenting on how the Mercedes boss spoke about Bottas playing second fiddle without any euphemism.
Yes, Bottas is playing second fiddle to Hamilton in the world championship race, but to say that out loud is something that isn’t quite accepted or appreciated.
Bottas was clearly upset by the remarks initially but must have later spoken to his team and then came up with a social media post to clarify his comments on ‘calling a meeting with the bosses’ regarding the wingman situation.
Wolff later had to defend his wingman comments as he clarified that the word ‘wingman’ was used in context of today’s race and not the world championship.
“In today’s race starting P2 after lap one, Valtteri’s race was the perfect wingman’s race. And I don’t mean it in championship terms. We have no number two.
“But how he was racing was from my standpoint the best race so far with Valtteri at Mercedes. The bittersweet feeling that I have is he would have deserved to have finished P2, where he started and where he was after lap one.
“But maybe the word ‘wingman’ doesn’t do him justice. He drove a sensational race and helped Lewis in a way to build the lead. Lewis on the other side drove a faultless, spectacular race as well.” Wolff said.
Wolff also tried to defend the two collisions that Bottas had towards the end of the race, one with Vettel and the other with Ricciardo, attributing the issue to his worn out tyres and damaged front wing.
“I don’t know how many laps [his] tyres had on but I think it was around 54. The tyre was completely shot. We were surprised how he managed to hold Sebastian and Kimi [Raikkonen] behind him from 25 or so laps. And we knew than the last five laps would be really critical.
“Sebastian made a good move into turn one on the inside and there was no traction on Valtteri’s car any more. he stayed on the incident on the dirty line, braked late, there was also nowhere to go. A complete normal racing incident.
“The second one the same. The second one looked a bit harsh when you look at the pictures but considering he was on the dirty line and the tyre was shot and the car was damaged on the front wing there was nowhere to go. Daniel tried on the outside, didn’t know that Valtteri’s car was not in perfect state any more and this is how they collided. Nothing on purpose.” Wolff explained.
