Shop
Mercedes supremo Toto Wolff has declared “it needs two to tango” if future incidents between title adversaries Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are to be avoided.
The season’s two biggest flashpoints have come when the Mercedes and Red Bull stars have collided, first at Silverstone in July, and then at Monza last month.
Entering the final eight rounds of the year, merely two world championship points separate the pair, with Hamilton ahead.
“If both wanted to avoid collisions, we would have less collisions,” said Wolff ahead of the Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix this weekend.
“If they don’t avoid collisions because they feel it’s right to not bail out or not give room, then we will have more.”
Red Bull counterpart Christian Horner acknowledged both drivers are of “a no-quarter kind”, and said the best means of preventing collisions was to be further up the road than their rival.
“We always review any incident and look at it very carefully, and you always think, okay, could I have done anything different, could I have done anything better?” said Horner.
“I think that Max is always very open to that. He’s extremely self-critical.
“You’re always learning – but he’s a hard racer, it’s part of his characteristic, it’s part of why he has the following that he does. You know that when he’s in the car, he’s going to give 110 per cent.
“I think that also has the impact on the driver that he’s racing, because they just know he’s going to go for it – but of course, there has to be measure, and I think at the right times he has shown that measure in different races even that we’ve seen this year.
“But, it’s part of the character that he is, that he’s an attacking driver. It’s part of his make-up and I don’t think that’s going to change.”
Wolff responded: “Yes, they also race each other very close now which wasn’t the case in the past and we are discussing these things in detail as well and I think the change of approach is that Lewis decided not to bail out anymore when he thinks that the corner is his.
“And now it needs two to tango, it needs two to understand each other on track when a collision can be avoided… it’s interesting to watch.”
F1 action at Istanbul Park begins tonight with Free Practice 1 from 19:30 AEDT.
