Angry Wolff says 'diplomacy has ended' for Mercedes

Toto Wolff says its time for him to take off his gloves and hat and end the diplomacy after a weekend in Sao Paulo during which punches were thrown at Mercedes.

From Lewis Hamilton's exclusion from qualifying for a 0.2mm discrepancy of his rear wing, to the stewards' decision to give rival Max Verstappen a free pass following his defensive move in the race, Wolff believes that everything and them some was thrown at Mercedes in Brazil.

After Sunday's race and Hamilton's master class win, the Austrian stopped short of suggesting that there was a bias against his team, or perhaps a sway in favour of Red Bull. But the time to be diplomatic was over.

"I don't want to moan here, because that is not how I see the sport," Wolff said.

"I think we've just had many, many punches in the face this weekend with decisions that could have swung either side, against us or for us.

"When always the decisions swing against you, it's just something that I'm just angry about, and I will defend my team, my drivers to what comes.

"I've always been very diplomatic in how I discuss things. But diplomacy has ended today."

• Read also - Wolff: Stewards' leniency towards Verstappen 'laughable'

Regarding Verstappen's controversial but unsanctioned move on Hamilton on lap 48 of Sunday's race, Wolff made clear thar he was all for hard racing. However, he also insisted that the rules need to be applied clearly and consistently for everyone in every case.

"Whatever the rules are, if the rules say that's on, which I would love to, that it's on, then that's fine," Wolff said. "I'm not discussing the principle of hard racing.

"Hard racing is super, and should be on. But not when it's been clarified before that you can't drive somebody off the track."

Addressing Hamilton's exclusion from qualifying on Friday and the non-conformity of Mercedes' rear wing, Wolff felt that the Brackley squad had been unfairly treated by the FIA, especially in light of the multiple permissions granted to Red Bull to patch up or repair its own rear wing on its RB16B.

"We will look at every single bit of tape that falls off," said Wolff, referring to Red Bull's tapped up rear wing. "I can promise that we will be asking a lot of questions in the next races.

"We saw that last weekend with Red Bull and many times before that too.

"But we were not allowed to do that. What is clear is that we do not have an illegal wing. It was a failure on the right side by 0.2mm."

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