{"id":491120,"date":"2026-02-19T23:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491120\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T23:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:05:09","slug":"toto-wolff-makes-jeffrey-epstein-joke-defends-mercedes-over-engine-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/491120\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff makes Jeffrey Epstein joke, defends Mercedes over engine row"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes boss Toto Wolff on Thursday vigorously defended accusations of irregularities regarding the engine and fuel of his cars for the 2026 Formula One season, going so far as to joke sarcastically about being involved in the Epstein affair.<\/p>\n<p>For some weeks, Mercedes has been suspected by some of its rivals of having found a loophole in the new engine regulations concerning the measurement of the compression ratio and therefore the car\u2019s power.<\/p>\n<p>Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au?pg=f1&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkmotorsport-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-mtr-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Mercedes-AMG power unit, which like the others this season is 50 per cent internal combustion and 50 per cent electric, also powers the McLaren, Alpine and Williams cars.<\/p>\n<p>It was announced on Wednesday a vote will take place over whether a regulation change should be implemented from August onwards over the legality of Mercedes\u2019 engine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were told that the (engine\u2019s) compression ratio was something illegal, which is total bullshit, utter bulls**t,\u201d thundered Wolff during a press conference on the sidelines of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain.<\/p>\n<p>The Austrian also fired a broadside against reports that fuel supplied to Mercedes by Petronas has allegedly not yet been approved ahead of the first Grand Prix of the season on March 8 in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>Get all the latest motorsport news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/newsletter-sign-up?utm_source=MotorsportArticle&amp;utm_medium=TextLink&amp;utm_campaign=signup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Sign up now!!! <\/a><\/p>\n<p>MotoGP finds new home with epic new look | 06:55<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen they come up with a story claiming our fuel is illegal,\u201d he continued. \u201cI don\u2019t know where that comes from and it starts spinning again. \u201cMaybe tomorrow we\u2019re inventing something else? I don\u2019t know, I\u2019ve been on the Epstein files, God knows what.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moments later Wolff appeared to backtrack on his reference to the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re not happy with me saying that, no?,\u201d he appeared to ask his media representative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was too young. What? Oh, yeah, I must not say that.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The US Justice Department last month released the latest cache of so-called Epstein files &#8212; more than three million documents, photos and videos related to its investigation into sex criminal Epstein, who died from what was determined to be suicide while in custody in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes boss Toto Wolff on Thursday vigorously defended accusations of irregularities regarding the engine and fuel of his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[2620,64,63,936,248074,220229,49589,817,813,816,5634,248073,20588,18923,668,85,248075],"class_list":{"0":"post-491120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-agence-france-presse","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bahrain","12":"tag-billionaire-paedophile","13":"tag-compression-ratio","14":"tag-engine-regulations","15":"tag-f1","16":"tag-formula-1","17":"tag-formula1","18":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","19":"tag-media-representative","20":"tag-mercedes-benz-ag","21":"tag-power-unit","22":"tag-press-conference","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-united-states-department-of-justice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}