Williams boss apologises to Wolff for something another team instigated

23:40, 25 May

Updated: 23:50, 25 May

byNorberto Mujica

On Friday James Vowles praised his former boss, Mercedes CEO and TP Toto Wolff, for his leadership. On Sunday however, the Briton felt the need to make ammends with the Austrian, as Wolff himself revealed.

Due to the mandatory pitstops rule enforced by the FIA for this year's Monaco GP, some teams came up with a strategy to bunch up the pack with one driver, to benefit their lead driver.

Williams and its chief Vowles, saw themselves in the position to do this, given that ahead of them Racing Bulls was doing the same, which the former Mercedes strategist, was not okay with, as he said to F1TV that 'that was not the way I want to go racing.'

Vowles forced into 'dangerous tactics' at Monaco GP

Wolff saw that the Williams cars were sometimes lapping 5 seconds slower than what the estimations suggested, which in his mind changed Monaco to a completely different track with different braking points.

“Yeah he [Vowles] sent me a text in the race,” Toto Wolff told among others GPblog after the Grand Prix of Monaco. "Where he said ‘I'm sorry. We had no choice given what happened ahead.’ I answered, ‘we know’."

“James is one of my guys and I don't want to sound patronising because he's making a career as a team principal and is doing really well. He had to do it. You know, it's two cars in the points and I think where it started was the Visa RBs that packed us [with the] back off and that's what he had to do.”

The situation became frustrating, as Wolff believes that emotion was the driving factor in Russell overtaking Albon off track by skipping the Nouvelle Chicane. A decision the British driver was ultimately at peace with, since his irregular manoeuvre allowed him to finish higher than he would have if he hadn't done it.

James Vowles, the team principal of Williams

After the race, Albon was not exactly happy with how everything had gone down at the Monaco Grand Prix, describing his race as painful: “[It's] not how I want to go racing and I don't think enjoyable for anyone watching as well. We knew it was a possibility, we knew this strategy could happen, I think we were talking about it on Thursday,” said Albon to, among others, GPblog.

The Williams driver stated that the Racing Bulls started with this strategy, leaving Williams no choice but to do the same. “We didn't want it to happen. [But] once RB started it, basically it put us in a position where we had to do it as well."