Eddie Jordan calls Wolff’s criticism of Mercedes ‘disingenuous and crass’

Former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan has criticised Toto Wolff for his “disingenuous and crass” comments regarding the decisions taken by Mercedes’ technical team during the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend.

Mercedes struggled in the opening race of 2023, with George Russell finishing seventh and Lewis Hamilton finishing in fifth, 50 seconds behind old rival Max Verstappen.

After the race, Wolff told Sky Sports that changes “need to be much more radical. More radical than just hope for an upgrade”, after having said that the team need to sit down and “decide the development direction that want to pursue in order to be competitive”.

Speaking on the Formula for Success podcast alongside former driver and Grand Prix-winner David Coulthard, Jordan - who ran his own team, Jordan Grand Prix, between 1991 and 2004 - explained that Wolff should take the responsibility for the team’s failures.

“He’s the CEO, he’s the boss”, he said of Wolff. “The buck stops with him. This is happening under his watch.

“To blame or criticise anybody in his design team is actually disingenuous. It’s really crass”, he added.

The Irishman encouraged Wolff to “stand up and take it on the chin and say ‘my team, my people, we have failed to get the job successfully done. However, we’re looking forward and we’ll be much stronger than in 2022.

“I think that Toto is strong enough, big enough and man enough to front this up and sort this out”.

With another 23 races in the calendar, there will be plenty of time for Mercedes to improve and notch some race wins. However, Coulthard emphasised that other teams, such as Red Bull and last week’s surprise package Aston Martin, will also look to improve.

“It’s going to be interesting to watch their [Mercedes’] recovery journey. Development doesn’t stop for the fast teams as well, so it is going to be a huge challenge for them”.

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