Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff unleashed a fiery broadside at Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko after the veteran Austrian suggested that rookie Kimi Antonelli deliberately gifted McLaren’s Lando Norris a crucial position in the closing laps of Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix.
The dramatic flashpoint came on the penultimate lap of the race when Antonelli, battling Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz for third place, locked up and slid wide at Turn 10.
Norris pounced immediately, snatching fourth place and banking two vital additional points that give the Briton a 12-point title lead over Max Verstappen heading into F1’s Abu Dhabi showdown.
To Marko, the moment looked suspicious.
“It was twice where he more or less waved Lando by [sic]. It was so obvious,” the Red Bull veteran declared, also pointing to Antonelli’s earlier lack of resistance against Oscar Piastri.
The implication was clear: Mercedes had clearly helped Norris.
Wolff’s response was volcanic when his countryman’s comments were put to him.
“Bless him, Helmut. This is total, utter nonsense that blows my mind even to hear that,” Wolff said.
“We're fighting for P2 in the championship, which is important for us. Kimi's fighting for a potential P3 [in the race].
©Mercedes
I mean, how brainless can you be to even say something like this? And it annoys me, because I'm annoyed with the race itself, how it went.
“I'm annoyed with the mistake at the end. I'm annoyed with other mistakes. And then hearing such nonsense blows my mind.”
Wolff made one thing clear: if Antonelli lost the position, it was because he messed up, not because he was playing games.
Even Verstappen’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, made a similar accusation on the Red Bull radio — but Wolff said that, at least in that case, the misunderstanding has been resolved.
"I spoke to GP. I saw him, and obviously, he was emotional in that moment, because they needed one position, I guess, to [help] win the championship. Now they need more,” Wolff explained.
“And I said to him, he just went off. He had a bit of a moment in the previous corner, and then had less entry speed into that left-hander, put the gas down and had that moment, which can happen, that lost the position.
“So with GP, everything's clear. Cleared the air. He said he didn't see the situation.”
But Wolff reserved his sharpest criticism for the idea that Mercedes would meddle in the title fight.
“Why would we do this? Why would we even think about interfering in a driver championship? I mean, you really need to check yourself whether you see ghosts,” he added.
Beyond the political firestorm, Wolff admitted the team underdelivered. Antonelli finished fifth, Russell sixth – and both were compromised by track position and traffic.
"When George was in free air, he did a 23.2 - a second quicker than before,” Wolff noted. “The moment you're in a traffic jam, the turbulence gets so bad that your performance drops, the tyre drops, and you have no chance to recover.”
With a quicker car than the results showed, Wolff said the outcome was simply down to mistakes and misfortune.
“I think if you start in free air, you fight in the front.”
As far as Red Bull’s accusations were concerned, Wolff’s message was unmistakable: Mercedes didn’t help Norris – and anyone suggesting otherwise is seeing ghosts.
Read also: Norris takes McLaren strategy flub ‘on the chin’
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