After Vertappen-Mercedes talks, Marko now agrees with Wolff over sensitive topic

At Mercedes, annoyance over Red Bull Racing's protest against George Russell's victory was still present almost two weeks after the Grand Prix in Canada. Toto Wolff, the team principal of Mercedes, also complained in Austria about the 'not serious' protest by the Austrian racing team.

“"Protesting something that you call unsportsmanlike behaviour. A long shot, or you're protesting a car not leaving 10 car lengths between himself and the safety car, well, he still needs to respect the delta. There are things that, from my perspective, are to be protested or legit to protest, and others that are just a little bit of a long shot,” said the Austrian.

Wolff was still upset that it took hours before Red Bull even filed the protests, only to withdraw them eventually. Before the second protest was dealt with by the stewards, Mercedes was five hours later. "Everybody misses planes, going home, and we end up with a result that was a little bit predictable. That's something that I thought was not necessary," grumbled Wolff.

In his criticism of Red Bull's actions, Wolff received support from a surprising side, namely Red Bull. Helmut Marko, the external advisor of the Austrian racing team, told among others GPblog: “The protest was for sure not very smart, yes."

It was already known that Max Verstappen was unhappy with his employer's protest. The four-time world champion wanted to win on the track, not in the Stewards' room.