Toto Wolff describes latest accusations against the legality of his car as “utter bullsh*t”, and in the process gets himself in further hot water with the FIA.
Other than the ongoing row over the legality of the Mercedes engine, it has emerged that the 100% sustainable fuel supplied by Petronas has yet to be homologated, which would affect the works team and its customers. On the other hand, Shell, which supplies Ferrari, Haas and Cadillac, and BP (Audi), have had their fuel approved.
The 2026 fuel must be certified by company Zemo on behalf of the FIA, the process including the auditing of the entire production supply chain and individual molecules. Failure to be fully homologated by Melbourne could see teams run a “provisional” blend, which would likely result in a performance disadvantage.
“We were told compression ratio is something where we were illegal, which is total bullsh*t, utter bullsh*t,” said the Austrian at today’s press conference. “Now the next story comes up that our fuel is illegal.
“I don’t know where that comes from, and it starts spinning again,” he added. “Maybe tomorrow, we’re inventing something else that I don’t know… I’ve been on the Epstein files. God knows what?”
Aware of the few embarrassed laughs, the Austrian looked to an FIA official standing nearby and asked: “You are not happy with me saying that… no, I was too young.”
“So, another nonsense,” Wolff continued. “You know, this is a complicated topic with the process and all of this, but I can’t even comment.
“We said it all along that this looks like a storm in a teacup, the whole thing, and the numbers that were coming up, if these numbers would have been true I absolutely understand why somebody would fight it,” he said of the engine row, which now goes to an -vote. “But eventually it’s not worth the fight. It doesn’t change anything for us, whether we stay like this or whether we change the new regulations.”