01/05/2023
NEWS STORY
Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff has called on the sport to take action following a processional Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Lionel Hutz, the hopeless lawyer in the early Simpsons episodes, voiced by the brilliant Phil Hartman, would surely have been on the case at the end of Sunday's Grand Prix.
Having sued the makers of The Neverending Story for false advertising, he would surely have set his sights on F1 and the sport's various broadcasters for the bore-fest witnessed when compared to the 'thrill-a-second' promise of the commercial trailers for the race.
Despite the best efforts of the Sky team ahead of the race to stoke the flames following Max Verstappen's verbal encounter with George Russell on Saturday, the only real drama come race day was when Esteban Ocon headed into a pitlane filled with members of the media and team crew members awaiting the podium ceremony.
Those flashy three-abreast, do-or-die battles of the advertisements aside, it was pretty much 51 laps of tedium as - despite the promise and expense of the 2022 rules overhaul - drivers were able to close in on their rivals but still unable to make a pass.
"There was no overtaking today, even with a big pace difference," said Toto Wolff at race end. "It made it not great entertainment.
"We had two cars that are sailing into the sunset on merit and then there's a 20-second gap," he continued. "I wouldn't know today between Aston Martin, Ferrari and us who is quicker, because you're stuck where you're stuck and that's pretty much it.
"At the end it all comes down to racing," said the Austrian. "It needs the tough battles and I think the highlight you could see yesterday (referring to the Sprint) was George and Max being able to battle it out. And today there was none of that.
"Even if you were within 0.2 seconds it was nearly impossible to overtake unless the other driver makes a mistake. We need to look at it and how we can make it better, how we can avoid just a boring race."
Asked whether the FIA had compromised matters by shortening the final DRS zone, which, seeing as DRS itself is an artificial aid to promote overtaking, he admitted: "I'm not sure that 100m more DRS would have made a difference.
"After a race weekend like this we must not talk it down overall, and say that is the wrong direction and we need to change completely," warned the Mercedes boss. "It is more about understanding why was it not so entertaining.
"For us, it is about finding more data sets in the next races, see how this is going to develop and then maybe we need to adjust."