Toto Wolff and Mattia Binotto ‘angry exchange’ caught on film as Christian Horner wades in

Mercedes: What’s gone wrong at the F1 and can they recover?

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Toto Wolff and Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto had a “heated exchange” at the Canadian Grand Prix with the incident recorded by Netflix, according to F1 journalist Adam Cooper. Christian Horner was also reportedly involved in the debate at a team principal meeting ahead of the race.

Posting on Twitter, Cooper said: “Hearing more and more about an angry exchange between Toto Wolff and Mattia Binotto re the porpoising technical directive at yesterday’s meeting. Christian Horner joined in too… and all of this in front of Netflix cameras!”

The meeting was a scheduled catch-up between team bosses and F1 boss Stefano Domenicali. However, talk of the porpoising issues dominated proceedings as team bosses have differing opinions.

According to the Daily Mail, one witness said Wolff “lost his s***” as tensions boiled over in the meeting. Wolff even claimed team bosses were deliberately stopping rule changes to gang up on Mercedes.

But, it is reported Horner and Binotto passionately argued against the new rules. It is understood Binotto said the rules did not need rewriting and claimed Mercedes was only pushing for changes as their car was underperforming.

One source said: “It was a row on a different scale from any of the press conference spats we have seen before.” Mercedes are adamant changes need to be made on safety grounds with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell both suffering in Azerbaijan.

However, Red Bull has attacked the new FIA technical directive issued for Canada. The governing body has promised to consult with teams to find medium-term solutions.

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In the short-term, the FIA will look at cars which are suffering from bouncing and set a minimum oscillation limit to stop engineers from running cars too low. Over the weekend, Horner blasted the rule claiming it was “unfair everyone has to change for Mercedes issues.

He also claimed the rule has been introduced without consultation and that the system would be hard to police. Horner told The Daily Telegraph: “It seems very unfair, under a set of regulations, to say that just because they’ve [Mercedes have] got it wrong, everybody else has to change.

“There’s an inherent cost with that, which, under a budget cap, is very tricky to accommodate. It’s never a healthy precedent. I landed last night and was confronted with this. I’m not sure what the consultation process was.

“We need to understand from the FIA, how do they intend to police this?”

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