Yesterday it was revealed that Christian Horner was unhappy at the way Mercedes behaved towards the proposed engine deal. Initially, Horner and Red Bull believed they had a deal in place only for Toto Wolff to block the move as he believed there was no benefit to be gained if the German team supplied one of their main rivals with power units.
In response to the comments made by Horner yesterday Toto Wolff has come out in defence of himself and the team, claiming he is happy to take the criticism from Horner as his main focus is protecting his own staff and teams interests.
“This is an opportunistic environment and I was always clear about my opinion,” Wolff told Motorsport.com.
“I take it as my main objective to protect the team and its members and to avoid being dragged into mistakes because of political pressures.
“I understand that sometimes for the benefit of the platform compromise is needed, but if the compromise is detrimental to the team and all the boys and girls here, I will not accept compromise.
“If the consequence of that is that I am being attacked, I will take that. For me, the important thing is that the people in the team know why I am doing that.
“I am doing it for us. I don’t care about the others.”
This has turned into a very needless dispute between two of the biggest teams in the sport but Red Bull only have themselves to blame for the situation they found themselves in last season. If they had behaved like a top team should during their issues last season they may have had more offers of help from their rivals.
