FIA's Wolff Investigation 'Quite Embarrassing' For F1 Says Vasseur

Monday, 18 December 2023 at 19:00

Frederic Vasseur was clearly not in support of FIA's investigation against Toto and his wife, Susie Wolff, as he called it "quite embarrassing."

FIA's investigation against Toto and Susie Wolff was launched almost two weeks ago and concluded only about two or three days later.

However, it had consequences, as it damaged the reputation of both Toto and Susie Wolff. Susie wrote she had received online abuse about her work and family and planned to find out who was behind the allegations.

Scuderia Ferrari team principal was recently asked by motorsport.com how he feels about the whole saga and whether he thought there would be any more implications, and he responded: "I think this story is quite embarrassing for our sport."

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One of the problems was neither Toto with Susie Wolff nor Mercedes were informed about this investigation prior to its announcement. The other problem was that it seemed to be based on some news agency article claiming to have interviewed an anonymous team principal.

“The story started with an article in a newspaper, I don't know if newspaper is the right word. And I think in this situation when you are speaking about an individual, you have to take care of what you are saying.

Vasseaur pointed to how quickly the investigation was launched and how even quicker it was ended after all the Formula One teams put out synonymous statements.

"I think it would have been appropriate from the FIA; they needed 24 hours between the [first] announcement and the second announcement. It would have made sense to use the 24 hours before the first announcement [to investigate], to avoid any bad conclusions."

Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff himself recently responded to the investigation and all the accusations as he called it a personal attack that crossed the red line.