Vasseur responded strongly during the team principal press conference on Friday at Silverstone<\/a>, saying it was ironic that Ferrari\u2019s development was being viewed differently to its rivals.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen Red Bull is developing, or when Mercedes is developing, they are a genius \u2013 when we are developing, we are cheating,\u201d Vasseur said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have to calm down with this. We didn\u2019t bring more parts than Red Bull or another one \u2013 I don\u2019t know if it was a joke!\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether he believed Wolff was effectively accusing Ferrari of breaching the cost cap, Vasseur said the implication was clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think that we overshoot the cost cap, for me it\u2019s going into this direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Wolff responded to Vasseur\u2019s comments after qualifying at the British Grand Prix, insisting his remarks had been misunderstood and were not intended as an accusation.<\/p>\n
\u201cFred is very emotional. If he would have read my comments rather than just a headline, he would have seen what I said was an observation and would be interesting to see how much updates one can pull out at the end of the season,\u201d Wolff told Sky Sports F1.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you know it\u2019s just the emotionality that we all have. And being passionate of our own team\u2019s success. And I\u2019m fine with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked directly whether Vasseur had taken his comments out of context, Wolff said the Ferrari boss had misread his point.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. It was misunderstood,\u201d Wolff added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I say things that I want to be understood, I will do so too, but in that case I didn\u2019t mean it really.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferrari has been one of the most active teams in the development race during the opening phase of the 2026 season, having brought updates across several weekends as it tries to cut into Mercedes\u2019 early advantage.<\/p>\n
The Scuderia sits second in the constructors\u2019 championship after eight races, with Lewis Hamilton\u2019s victory in Barcelona the only grand prix this year not won by Mercedes.<\/p>\n
Vasseur defended Ferrari\u2019s approach on Friday, arguing the team had simply chosen to bring performance to the car early rather than wait until later in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all in the same boat that if we can bring something at the beginning, we do it,\u201d Vasseur said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s better to have a couple of tenths for five races than just a couple of tenths for the last two.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut sometimes it\u2019s difficult to find performance, sometimes you can have the feeling that we are bringing a big upgrade, but it is just the modification of some parts and nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mercedes and Ferrari will continue their fight on track at Silverstone, with Kimi Antonelli on pole for the British Grand Prix ahead of Charles Leclerc and Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Antonelli storms to British GP pole<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff has responded to Fred Vasseur’s comments against Mercedes. Image: XPB Images Wolff had questioned Ferrari\u2019s ability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,2334,826,13276,945,806,805,803,804,12357,85,4703],"class_list":["post-779383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-british-gp","tag-ferrari","tag-fred-vasseur","tag-mercedes","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot1","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779383","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=779383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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