F1 News: Toto Wolff Makes Funny Jab At The FIA After Mexico GP

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff passed a rather funny but hard-hitting joke after the Mexico GP, saying "We haven’t passed scrutineering yet" after Lewis Hamilton finished P2, just like he did in the United States Grand Prix where he was disqualified by the FIA for excessive skid block wear on his car.

Hamilton was just 2.223 seconds behind Max Verstappen when he crossed the chequered flag in Austin. However, the second place and the points that came along with that were deleted after the governing authority found excessive skid block wear on his car. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who finished P6 received a similar treatment.

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Fortunately for the seven-time world champion, he was able to regain what he lost in Austin but the Mercedes team boss was wary about celebrating too early. When talking about Hamilton's P2 result after the Mexican GP, the topic of the Austin disqualification came up which led Wolff to joke that they weren't in the safe zone yet. He told Sky F1:

“Well, we haven’t passed scrutineering yet.

"So let’s not praise the day before the evening.”

Wolff had all the reason to smile after the race that was expected to be dominated by Ferrari after their qualifying results. But Hamilton not only scored P2 but also set the fastest lap of the race in Mexico. The team boss added:

“The smile on our face is because the car was strong.

"I think once Lewis was in free air, we had so much margin on the medium tyre, the lap times were good and then fastest lap at the end.”

However, Wolff was unsure if Hamilton carried enough pace to challenge race leader Max Verstappen. He continued:

“Not sure. It’s been a few weekends now that we’ve been saying, ‘We could have’, but we didn’t.

"I think we need to qualify better and then probably the straight-line speed wouldn’t have been so competitive against Max, but overall the pace is there.”

Hamilton has been complaining about the problems he constantly faces with his W14 F1 car. For a change, Wolff said he'd heard a compliment from the British driver. He said jokingly:

“It’s been 12 years now that we have been discussing during the race, ‘They’re [the tires] not going to last’, but today I think it was the first [time] he said the car is actually good!

"It was a brilliant, brilliant drive and we have these oscillations in performance, we don’t really know, sometimes the tyres stick, sometimes not.”