Toto Wolff sets the record straight on Mercedes “crisis meeting” talk

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has set the record straight on reports that a “crisis meeting” was held within the team following the Belgian Grand Prix. 

The Brackley-based outfit has seen a dip in performance following the Canadian Grand Prix, where George Russell clinched the victory and his team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli took his first F1 podium with a third-place finish. 

After finishing the Belgian Grand Prix in fifth place, Russell explained to the media that there was a “big meeting” taking place within the team this week, which led to reports of an emergency or “crisis meeting”.

“That’s always such nonsense – this talk of a ‘crisis meeting,'” Wolff told Sky Sports F1 Germany.

“We have meetings every week to assess where the car stands and what we can improve. And one of those meetings was last week, exactly as planned, with the drivers. We do that regularly, every few months. That was the ‘big’ meeting. And it was very interesting.”

Russell also clarified his comments while speaking to the media ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

“I think my comments about a big meeting were probably exaggerated a bit because we talk monthly with everyone back at the factory. We talk, obviously, weekly with the people who are here on the race-team side of things, so it’s nothing abnormal.

George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

“That meeting was actually planned probably three or four weeks ago, just as all of these meetings are. But clearly our performance as a team has gone backwards in the last six or seven races, and we’re trying to unpick why that may have been.

“I think there’s a number of factors at play. Obviously, we struggle a bit in the hotter conditions – Spa wasn’t hot, but generally we struggle in the hotter conditions. We’re now in summer; start of the season was spring, and we brought some little things with updates, and we think that may not have been performing as we hoped.

“So we’ll revert back on some small items. I think we’ve potentially just lost our way slightly and are just going to go back to basics, focus on the main parts of the car and see where that takes us.”

Photos from Hungarian GP – Practice