The closing stages of the Qatar GP have sparked new tensions between Mercedes and Red Bull. In the penultimate lap, Kimi Antonelli made a mistake in turn nine during his duel with Lando Norris, allowing the McLaren driver to easily overtake. Red Bull’s top advisor, Helmut Marko, suspects foul play: “Antonelli deliberately let Norris pass,” he responded. Toto Wolff, however, is not amused by the accusations and hits back hard at Marko.
For Red Bull, Norris’s overtaking of Antonelli immediately seemed suspicious. Race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase expressed his doubts via the team radio. “I don’t know what happened with Antonelli,” he told Max Verstappen. “It looks like he just moved aside and let Norris pass.” Helmut Marko also saw nothing else but a deliberate gesture from the Mercedes rookie. “He just let him pass, that was obvious,” he told several media outlets.
‘He Seems to Be Seeing Ghosts’
McLaren is powered by a Mercedes engine, which might make the Silberpfeile inclined to see the championship tilt towards Norris. If Max Verstappen wins, the title would once again go to a driver with a Honda engine. However, Marko’s words were completely misinterpreted by Toto Wolff, who firmly dismissed the speculations. The Mercedes team boss reacted strongly to the suggestion that Antonelli and Mercedes had deliberately interfered in the title race.
“That’s absolute nonsense,” Wolff fumed to the German Bild. “How can anyone be so foolish to say such a thing? We’re fighting for second place in the constructors’ championship, and Kimi still had a chance to finish third at that time. These statements irritate me. The race irritated me, the mistake irritated me. And then someone comes up with such nonsense. This is unbelievable,” he continued, visibly irritated. “Kimi made a mistake. That can happen. But why would we even consider interfering in the drivers’ championship? He (Marko) needs to get checked; he seems to be seeing ghosts,” Wolff concluded sharply.
