Toto Wolff on Charles Leclerc: "Younger drivers are more aggressive"

F1 News

9 September 2019 at 14:51

Toto Wolff believes that the FIA's decision not to penalize Charles Leclerc for forcing Lewis Hamilton off the track will cause more collisions at future races. The Mercedes boss also believes that younger drivers are more aggressive as they are not necessarily in the championship battle and can, therefore, take more risks. 

"I think we will now have more situations in which cars will touch each other," Wolff said to Crash.net. “I have the idea that we will keep it until the moment that a crash finally occurs and then we go back to the old familiar. Until then we will just let them race.

“Today the drivers that are going for the drivers’ world championship bail out of it so it saves Charles.

“In another instance, Lewis perfectly knew what he was doing he saved it and didn’t lose any bits or any parts in the incident but he could have equally decided I am not going to let this happen and put the two cars out.

“In the last few years, we have seen that especially the younger drivers are more aggressive. Such movements (such as those of Leclerc) can easily lead to a trip to the wall if neither racer wants to give space. We saw in this game (between Hamilton and Leclerc) that the people who go for the title let him go. In this case, it will save Charles."

Wolff will be glad that Mercedes got a solid result at Monza but will hope to be back on the top step in Singapore next time out.