Wolff sees Leclerc's true colours after what Ferrari F1 star did to Russell

27 November 2023 , 10:06

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Charles Leclerc and George Russell both finished on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix podium (Image: Hasan Bratic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

Toto Wolff heaped praise upon Charles Leclerc for keeping things clean in his late fight with George Russell at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Monegasque finished the race second ahead of his Mercedes rival. But it was Russell's team who got the last laugh as they managed to do just enough to avoid being overtaken by constructors' championship rivals Ferrari in the dying stages.

Just four points separated the teams at the start of the race. And with both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz out of contention for the big points, it was up to Russell to not let Leclerc beat him by more than one place.

The Brit hung onto the gearbox of the Ferrari as Leclerc tried to use Sergio Perez in one last desperate move. He allowed the Mexican past knowing he had a five-second time penalty and tried to slow Russell enough so that, once that was taken into account, the Red Bull racer would have split the two of them.

His clever thinking did not pay off but, out of other options, it was worth a try. And Mercedes team principal Wolff was pleased with Leclerc for not being too aggressive in his desperation.

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"Perez, for quite some time, wasn't really on the radar," the Austrian told reporters. "We knew that they probably couldn't hang out the one-stop when he was ahead and then kick him out 10 or 11 seconds behind us.

"At that moment, we only concentrated on ourselves. We said, 'Let's extract the quickest race for George', bearing in mind you need to manage the surfaces. If not, you're falling off a cliff.

"We knew that we had to be within five seconds of Perez but Leclerc was so far ahead that we didn't think he could manage these gaps in order to maybe keep us behind. At the end, he could have pulled the handbrake on in the last sector and he didn't. I think that shows the character of a driver."

Meanwhile, Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur dismissed the suggestion that his racer was "too fair". He said: "I don't think so - you could imagine that [we could] block Russell but then you have also to ensure that Perez is in between you and Russell.

"If you want to block Russell, it's a matter of hundreds of seconds. I'm not a big fan of this and we did our best in a fair way when we let Perez go to give him the DRS to help as much as possible."

Daniel Moxon