F1 Gossip: Wolff's 'spreading s**t' jibe clarified

Mercedes F1 has been forced to clarify Toto Wolff’s recent 'spreading s**t' jibe about Red Bull's Christian Horner and McLaren's Zak Brown.

Brown was reported as saying he expects George Russell and Max Verstappen to form Mercedes' driver line-up for 2021.

Leading to Wolff’s response to Austrian publication Osterreich: “Brown is like Christian Horner: they just talk s**t. I think Zak wanted to wind up Christian with this one. I don’t care.”

Mercedes has since clarified Wolff’s quote, claiming that he had been “misquoted”, telling iNews: “He said Zak and Christian were giving each other s**t – not that they spread s**t.”

For 2025, F1 is planning to introduce ‘active aerodynamics’ to its cars in a bid to reduce fuel consumption.

In an exclusive interview with RaceFans, F1’s chief technical officer Pat Symonds said reducing the weight of the cars and slashing fuel consumption is top of his priority.

“When I set out what we want to do with this car I said, if you go right to the top level, I want the same performance from the car and I want to use two-thirds of the fuel,” Symonds said.

“I said I want the same speed, I want roughly the same lap time, I want roughly the same acceleration, I want roughly the same braking capability and I want roughly the same cornering capability.”

F1 is closing to agreeing on a $30 million salary cap for teams to spend on their driver line ups. (Gazzetta Dello Sport)

A financial package has been agreed upon by all ten teams to cover the costs of F1’s additional races in 2021 as part of its new ‘qualifying sprint’ format. (Motorsport Week)

Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko says Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s performance at the season-opening Bahrain GP shows the pair are in a league of their own. (formel1.de)

Mark Webber has admitted ‘he’s slightly nervous’ when thinking about how former Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel will fare at Aston Martin in 2021. (SpeedWeek)

Longest-serving Mercedes staff members have revealed their "heartbreak" that Michael Schumacher was unable to win on his return to the sport from 2010 to 2012.

Speaking on F1’s ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast, chief strategist James Vowles recalled Schumacher’s pole lap from Monaco 2012 and the disappointment faced by the team that he was forced to start sixth due to a penalty picked up from the race before.

Vowles said: “I was over the moon and I think it was one of the best laps he’d probably ever done in his life… but I was heartbroken, truly heartbroken for him that this is a guy that we all wanted – around this table and within the factory – for him to win a race, because he deserved it frankly, and he put so much effort into the team and so much of his life into the team that it was payback for him and that was his opportunity through the year.”