Toto Wolff tackles Red Bull ‘dirty play’ theory after Ricciardo fastest lap steal

Mercedes’ Toto Wolff.

Toto Wolff has said the move for Daniel Ricciardo to set the fastest lap in Singapore was not a “dirty play” from VCARB, when the subject was put to him after the race.

Ricciardo came in late on at Marina Bay and took the fastest lap of the race from Lando Norris, denying his former McLaren team-mate a bonus point, which led to a ‘thank you’ over team radio from Max Verstappen as a by-product of keeping him one further point ahead in the Drivers’ Championship.

Toto Wolff: Daniel Ricciardo fastest lap not a ‘dirty play’

With VCARB linked to Red Bull through their drivers but competitively autonomous, Christian Horner shut down any idea that an instruction came from the Red Bull pit wall to take a point from McLaren, reasoning that Ricciardo will have had a fastest lap bonus in his contract and adding: “Daniel obviously wanted to finish the race on a high.”

While not referencing the two-team scenario himself, Mercedes team principal Wolff believed that Ricciardo setting the fastest lap was fair game for Ricciardo, with widespread reports suggesting the Singapore Grand Prix may have been his last with VCARB.

And given the tightness of the World Championship fight, the Mercedes boss said that even though Red Bull’s sister team took away the fastest lap point from McLaren, it was a sensible thing to do.

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“I think you’ve got to probably play all strategies that you have,” Wolff responded when asked about the move for Ricciardo to set the fastest lap.

“I don’t think it was a dirty play. Not at all. It could come down to a point, it was within the regulations, the drivers weren’t unfair with each other, [Ricciardo] just scored an extra point [sic]. No big deal.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella gave his own response to the move after the race and, while he stopped short of saying the teams were in cahoots, said there need to be discussions over the teams needing to be “totally autonomous” in future.

“I don’t know the facts. I just saw that Racing Bulls [VCARB] went for the fastest lap, and they achieved it. But for me here talk about sportsmanship and so on, I think is… it would be out of place,” he said.

“So I think we have to take it at face value. They scored the fastest lap.

“Potentially as part of a longer-term conversation, we need to put the sport in a position in which at any stage – being it trackside or being it factory-side – teams behave in a totally autonomous manner.

“This is a Constructors’ Championship, it’s a Drivers’ Championship. It is not a coalition championship.

“This needs to definitely be addressed. But at no point I have elements now to say Racing Bulls went for the fastest lap to support Red Bull. I just find it a little… how to say… peculiar.”

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