Toto Wolff gives verdict on fierce Russell v Perez battle ‘at the very limit’

While the sort of incident that can happen, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes Sergio Perez moved “late” on George Russell at Monza.

Russell in his Mercedes found himself in combat with the Red Bull of Perez for P7 at Monza, a move which Russell ultimately completed, though not without some drama going into the opening chicane.

Toto Wolff reflects on ‘late Sergio Perez move against George Russell

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

Looking around the outside of Perez as the long Monza start/finish straight met the opening chicane, Russell would bail out and cut the opening corners, Perez getting his elbows out in the braking zone and through the chicane. Russell would return the position to Perez before re-passing at that chicane, keeping the place this time as Perez applied the squeeze once more.

Russell accepted it as “hard racing”, but “at the very, very limit” having feared he was going airborne as Perez ushered him to the very edge of the circuit heading down to Turn 1.

Put to him by media including PlanetF1.com that he had a ‘fun’ battle with Perez, Russell replied: “I’m not sure you can describe that fun, because I thought I was about to go airborne when he was squeezing me at 340[kph].

“But yeah, hard racing. It was right at the very, very limit. We didn’t crash at the end of the day and I got past, but if it was half a centimetre more it would have been a different story.”

As for how Russell’s Mercedes boss saw it, Wolff felt that Perez had moved “late” against Russell in the braking zone at the first chicane.

“I’m trying to be objective, and with the George incident on Turn 1, it’s probably racing that can happen,” he said.

“But with Checo, that was a move under braking. Was there enough gap, when the gap was tiny? But still, the move came late.”

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P7 was where Russell would finish, two places behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton, as Mercedes continue to search for the performance level which saw them win three races out of four going into the summer break.

Wolff saw good value for Formula 1 in Ferrari winning the Italian Grand Prix – their home race – after Charles Leclerc successfully pulled off the one-stop strategy, but Wolff admitted that Mercedes are yet to hit the performance heights again of pre-summer break.

“I think first of all, you need to congratulate Ferrari,” he said. “If you can choose a winner for the Monza Grand Prix, it’s Ferrari, that’s good for Formula 1, good for the show, good for entertainment, good for revenue.

“But yeah, it was better than Zandvoort, but we are quite a chunk off from pre-summer performances, where I think we scored the podium in five races or six races and with three victories, two on merit, and we don’t seem to be playing there at the moment, in the front.

“And when you’re on the back foot pace wise, then obviously you’re in a bit of a no man’s land in terms of strategy. So, it’s good that we have a little bit of time to analyse that.”

Wolff said that Mercedes did go “very defensive” in the second stint, hoping that the one-stop could be an option, but were suffering too much with tyre graining, particularly on Russell’s W15.

“We suffered from front-left graining,” he said, “it came at various times.

“With George the graining started a bit earlier on stint one, and then we were very defensive in our lap times in the second stint, in order to maybe extract more tyre performance, maybe to make a one-stop last. But then the graining came up.

“But it was so easy to get it wrong. As a driver, it’s very difficult to judge, can you make it to the end or not? Because you see the front is opening up or the front is starting to grain, so yeah, graining was an issue.”

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