Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has labelled Red Bull's protest of George Russell's victory in Canada as "petty", "small" and "embarrassing".

His view is no doubt shared by many, especially as it took almost six hours before the result of the race could be officially declared.

Christian Horner has already revealed that on Friday his team had warned race director Rui Marques of potential gamesmanship as rivals sought to take advantage of Max Verstappen's penalty points predicament which left him on the precipice of a race ban.

When the Austrian team perceived Russell to be playing games with the Dutchman under the Safety Car, in went the protest, which was subsequently thrown out.

"First of all, it took team Red Bull Racing two hours before they launched the protest, so that was in their doing," Wolff told Sky Sports. "You know, honestly, it's so petty and so small.

"They've done it in Miami," he added. "Now they launched two protests... they took one back because it was ridiculous.

"They come up with some weird clauses, what they call clauses," he continued. "I guess the FIA needs to look at that because it's so far-fetched it was rejected.

"You know, you race, you win and you lose on track. That was a fair victory for us, like so many they had in the past. And it's just embarrassing."

As well as claiming that Russell was driving erratically behind the Safety Car, Red Bull insisted the Mercedes driver was more than the mandated ten car lengths behind it.

While, in their report, the stewards deemed that Russell was simply complying with the timing delta appearing on his dash, no mention was made of the gap to the Safety Car.

"One of them they actually pulled as a protest, they didn't even follow it through because it was nonsense," said Wolff. "The second one took us five hours because I don't even know what you refer to as 'unsportsmanlike behaviour' or something.

"What is it all about?" asked the Austrian. "Who decides it? Because I'm 100% sure it's not Max, he's a racer. He would never go for a protest on such a trivial thing."

"No, absolutely not," Christian Horner told Sky Sports when asked if he regretted the protest. "It's a team's right to do so.

"We saw something we didn't think was quite right," he added. "You have the ability to put it in front of the stewards and so that's what we chose to do. Absolutely no regrets in that."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by moomoo, 3 hours ago

"I think that gambling on a finish under safety Toto should've told Russell to hang back so Max gets the chequer and immediate DQ. Problem solved all round for the rest of the season...."

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2. Posted by Superbird70, 3 hours ago

"A number of sports allow challenges to decisions made on the field of play, and if upheld there is no penalty. If the challenge is frivolous or out right incorrect there can be a penalty. Is it time to think about actions to discourage these type of nuisance challenges (loss of points, pit box reassignment)? The official outcome of the race was delayed by 5 hours because of this."

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Red Bull's Montreal protest "embarrassing", says Wolff

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