Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Wolff puzzled by lack of TV time for Mercedes

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Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff has said he's puzzled by how little TV coverage either of the team's drivers received during the Japanese Grand Prix.

"I wasn’t sure during the race where we were, I needed to look on the timing screens because you couldn’t see [our] cars on track," he said.

"That is somehow just a strange way of directing a race.

The world feed television pictures are provided by Bernie Ecclestone's FOM company, and coverage of the team during a Grand Prix weekend is vital for the sponsors who contribute millions of dollars to Mercedes to have their brands seen on the car.

There have been suggestions that Formula One's commercial rights holder is unhappy with Mercedes for refusing to enter into an engine supply deal with Red Bull Racing and is punishing them by reducing their on-screen visibility, but Wolff was sceptical of this.

"Always very difficult to please Bernie all the time," shrugged Wolff. "I need to find out.

"I can’t imagine this is done with a strategy because it would be clearly misrepresenting what is happening on track.

"Spectacular TV pictures are important and some of the shots were spectacular - there was some good fighting midfield and that is what the camera was on."

Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda has already said that the company was never seriously approached for an engine deal by Red Bull.

"I spoke to Bernie about this engine deal and it was very clear that [Red Bull owner Dietrich] Mateschitz never really approached us for the reasons he never really liked Mercedes from the past," he said, adding: "Bernie is not upset with us about the engine."

However, Lauda shared Wolff's concern over the lack of TV coverage this weekend and said that he will speak to Ecclestone about it.

"I was watching TV all day long, and funny enough I saw Saubers and a lot of Honda cars, but I don't know why," Lauda commented.

"Even the pit stop of Lewis, the leader, you only saw him driving out. You didn't even see if he changed his wheels."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.