Toto Wolff angry: Mercedes team principal calls engineers ‘Teletubbies’

At the eleventh Grand Prix of the year at the Hungaroring, the Formula 1 stars at the back of the field faced a particular challenge. This was because a problem with the flagging system forced them to rely on warnings from their engineers and manually displayed flags. This caused confusion for some drivers.

The unluckiest driver was probably Oscar Piastri, who, whilst leading the race, attempted to overtake Williams veteran Carlos Sainz and was rammed by him. The Australian was furious, whilst the Spaniard referred to the situation and declined to apologise for the collision, for which he received a 5-second time penalty.

However, it wasn’t just some of the drivers who were annoyed – Toto Wolff was too. The Mercedes team principal had to watch as championship leader Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari superstar Lewis Hamilton lost valuable time whilst lapping Audi prospect Gabriel Bortoleto. This played into the hands of Max Verstappen, who ultimately secured second place.

Wolff vented his frustration to colleagues at ‘Sky Sports F1’ after the race, which his protégé Antonelli had finished in third place: “The fact that the cars at the back of the field are hindering the battle between Lewis and Kimi – it’s simply a disgrace that some of the Teletubbies engineers sitting at the pit wall aren’t telling the drivers what’s going on behind them. I’m simply not happy with the whole situation.”

With this creative dig, the Viennese man was referring to the BBC programme of the same name for pre-school children, which centres on four colourful Teletubbies. These enjoy cult status amongst many young and older viewers alike.