Wolff and Vasseur took part in the Vegas event’s team principals’ press conference just after FP1 had had to be cancelled, due to a water valve cover being worked loose by Esteban Ocon’s Alpine and struck by Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and Ocon’s Alpine on subsequent laps.
This was due to the high underfloor forces the current ground-effect era of F1 cars assert on street tracks, with the concrete surround on the valve cover in question failing after the cars had been running over it at top speed.
Ocon’s car had to be rebuilt around a new chassis while urgent repairs were made to the valve cover and 30 others along the Strip. Sainz also needed a new chassis and engine to complete the Vegas weekend and was given a 10-place grid penalty for using an additional energy store outside of his allocation.
As this was going on, Wolff and Vasseur took part in an extraordinary press conference where a clearly irate Vasseur stated: “this [situation] will cost us a fortune – we fucked-up the session for Carlos”.
Wolff later said “you’re speaking about a fucking drain cover that’s been undone, that has happened before – that’s nothing, it’s FP1” as he sought to defend the Las Vegas event organisation from criticism over the track problems.
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
The car of Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, is returned to the pits on a truck after damage from a loose manhole cover
A week on at the Abu Dhabi GP, both team principals have been summoned to explain their comments to the F1 stewards for the season finale, with the panel set to examine if they have breached Article 12.2.1.f of the FIA’s International Sporting Code.
This states a rules breach will have been deemed to have occurred if there have been “any words, deeds or writings that have caused moral injury or loss to the FIA, its bodies, its members or its executive officers, and more generally on the interest of motorsport and on the values defended by the FIA” by a competitor.
In an official FIA bulletin published on Thursday in Abu Dhabi, the governing body stated: “The Stewards of the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, having received a report from the FIA media delegate concerning the use of certain language at the FIA press conference in Las Vegas on 16 November, in view of the inability to conduct a hearing last Sunday morning, delegated their authority to the Stewards of the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix [to conduct the hearing]”.
Both Wolff and Vasseur will report to the Abu Dhabi stewards for a joint hearing at 5pm local time on Thursday.
More to follow
