The Mercedes boss is not happy with the Williams one after comments made about Mick Schumacher.
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Addressing the possibility of Schumacher joining the team, Vowles said: “I think we have to be straightforward about this: Mick is not special. He has just been good. I think he would come with a lot more experience than Franco does.”
Schumacher is a Mercedes F1 reserve, with Wolff criticising his former strategy chief Vowles.
“I’ve obviously known James for many years, he’s a strategist,” Wolff explained to Sky Sports F1.
"Sometimes he says things too straightforwardly, that was a statement he could have done without.
"Mick has won everything there is to win, from F4, F3 and F2, and then of course operated in an environment with Gunther [Steiner], who is brutally tough and that was perhaps not what he needed to develop as a driver.
I think I’m with Toto here. Not choosing Schumacher is fine. Nobody is entitled to an F1 seat. And maybe Mick really is a worse choice. But to then say “Mick is not special” is just needlessly rubbing salt into the wound. He didn’t need to insult one driver to defend his choice to go with another.
Some people love the ‘brutal’ part of being brutally honest a bit too much, I think.
Agreed, yesterday I said Vowles was on a roll, but the more I think about it the more I feel he was being a jerk without any reason and it doesn’t fit him.
Yeah, I had the same thoughts after his comments on Sargeant giving 100% and falling short.
Like ok, yeah, maybe you’re right and it’s not just the car not suiting him or him not having experience in a competitive F1 situation, etc. But I don’t think it’s good to just plain say he’s underperforming on every metric and “you can see on his face he’s giving 100%”.
The honesty is great and necessary, but going too far in the brutal way, as you said, just leads to him looking like a toxic asshole.
Not to mention all of this being done publicly puts extra pressure on Colapinto since now he knows if he doesn’t perform well he might just be remembered by another Vowles public statement about his lacking abilities.
It’s just word choice, but nepotism is alive and well in racing. Just ask the fifteen Andretti drivers.
