Toto Wolff takes savage dig at Abu Dhabi 2021 race director ahead of final F1 showdown next week

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff took a sarcastic approach towards heading into the final race of the season on almost equal points with Ferrari in the standings.

After their rather disappointing performance in the F1 Las Vegas GP earlier, Mercedes have lost a definitive lead they had over Ferrari in the standings. The two teams are now just separated by four points, which was almost "equal," as Toto Wolff said.

The team principal felt confident to retain second place against Ferrari, as he stated that it should be fine with a "proper" race director.

"I think we’re going there pretty much equal on points. With a proper race director so that should be fine," he said, according to Race Fans.

This was possibly a hint towards the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP where Lewis Hamilton lost his eighth world championship to Max Verstappen. The two drivers started the race on equal points and Hamilton led the race for a large part. A late safety car, however, saw Verstappen take the lead and win the race to win his maiden world championship.

Michael Masi, who was the race director, did not apply the rules correctly under the safety cars. Allowing the lapped cars only between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap themselves, he gave the Dutchman a golden opportunity to get ahead of the Brit and win the race.

For this error in judgement, the FIA later sacked Masi. Toto Wolff and Mercedes tried multiple times to reverse the result of the race and have a proper investigation, but nothing worked.

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Toto Wolff disappointed after Mercedes' downfall in F1 Las Vegas GP

The Brackley-based team had a strong pace in Las Vegas, but incidents during the race hammered their result down. Lewis Hamilton suffered an early puncture in the race which saw him pit early and move down to P17.

George Russell later shared an incident with Max Verstappen which damaged the latter's front wing. For this, the Brit was penalized with an added five seconds at the end of the race (since he did not pit after that). This dropped him down at P8, below Hamilton.

In view of that, Toto Wolff said that this was yet another race where the team had the pace but the result was unsatisfactory. Crash.net quoted him as saying:

"Sad to say yet another time we had pace but just no result. George after the incident with Verstappen when he got a penalty, that was pretty much game over. Also, he had pace at the front, maybe not Max, but it is what it is."

Despite the result, Toto Wolff is optimistic about the final race in Abu Dhabi. He feels that the team can score a podium and remain ahead of Ferrari in the standings in second place.