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- Bad blood between F1's two best teams is threatening to boil over as the championship heats up.
- Team bosses Toto Wolff and Christian Horner have been playing it cool all season, but that changed in Brazil.
- With three races left, Red Bull's Max Verstappen leads the drivers standings while Mercedes leads the constructors championship.
The rivalry between the two teams at the pinnacle of Formula One is getting nasty as Red Bull and Mercedes clash in the tightest title race in years.
Between them the teams have won every F1 title since 2010, but things in 2021 are tighter than they've been at any point in the last decade, and that is starting to show.
Up until this weekend, both teams had been playing it cool. They've been telling the cameras they enjoy the pressure and the competition and seemingly relishing the rivalry with a good nature.
The two teams are spearheaded by their team principals, Toto Wolff for Mercedes, and Christian Horner for Red Bull.
Wolff generally comes across as the more composed of the two, telling Insider in October that he does not feel the pressure despite being engaged in the fiercest title race he has experienced since joining Mercedes in 2013.
"I don't feel the pressure at all," he said.
"It's not eating me up. We've done it seven times in a row, there's nothing more to prove."
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Horner, meanwhile, enjoys poking his rival.
"Of course this is the first time Mercedes, and the first time Toto has been in a situation where he has been challenged," Horner told Channel 4 during the Russian Grand Prix weekend in late September.
"The competition is fierce, I think that's the key thing about this championship. We are loving the competition and the more Toto gets wound up, the more fun it becomes."
And it appears that Wolff was more wound up then he initially let on.
Over the course of a topsy-turvy, enthralling weekend in Brazil, Wolff has struggled to hide quite how much he wants to win an eighth consecutive constructors' championship, and how much he wants Lewis Hamilton to win a fifth consecutive drivers' title.
It started during the sprint race on Saturday.
Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from qualifying over an irregularity in his rear wing, meaning he was forced to start the day's sprint race at the back of the grid. That disqualification came about after a complaint from Red Bull and Horner.
Hamilton put in a stellar performance regardless, climbing 15 places to finish fifth.
Speaking to Hamilton on the radio, Wolff's studied calm slipped, telling the British driver: "Lewis, brilliant job. Damage limitation. Fuck them all."
He didn't specify who "them all" was, but it is likely Wolff was referring to both the Red Bull team bosses, and F1 authorities.
Wolff's competitive streak continued on Sunday when he was seen shouting aggressively and pointing at TV cameras focused on him when his driver overtook Verstappen for the lead.
-Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) November 14, 2021
The uncharacteristic outburst was jokingly explained as "just a friendly hello to the race director," but Wolff's comments after the race suggest otherwise.
"We had a broken part on our rear wing which we couldn't look at, couldn't analyze, failed the test, and after disqualified, very harsh," he said, as reported by Planet F1.
"And then you see on the Red Bull repairs, three times in a row on a rear wing whilst being in parc fermé with no consequence."
Parc fermé is an area where cars sit after events and are not allowed to be worked on by teams.
Wolff was also unhappy with an incident between Max Verstappen and Hamilton in which Verstappen appeared to push his rival off the track.
"That's one thing, and obviously that really peaked with the decision in the race, which was, I mean, really wrong defence from Max, absolutely an inch over the limit, but he needed to do that to defend.
"Lewis just managed it even more brilliantly by avoiding the contact and end the race that way.
"But that was just over the line, it should have been a five-second penalty at least. Probably Max knew that. Just brushing it under the carpet, it's just the tip of the iceberg. It's just laughable."
"I have always been very diplomatic in how I discuss things, but diplomacy has ended today," Wolff added.
-Formula 1 (@F1) November 14, 2021
Wolff refused to elaborate on the reason for his outburst, but said it was due to an unbroadcast discussion between himself and race director Michael Masi.
"Whatever is in the director's notes, we're going to accept, I'm also okay if the director's notes are going to be shredded and we just race hard like we did today, fine.
"But if the director's notes say that you cannot push anybody off the track in Mexico, and then obviously that's valid here too, and then you're actually being driven off the track, it's just not very consistent.
"My discussion with the race director was not broadcast, but my reaction was. We feel we'll discuss it behind closed doors."