Mercedes’ Toto Wolff Faces Unanticipated Backlash from Taxi Community
Jun.4 – Italian taxi drivers have amusingly returned fire at Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.
When asked to comment on Max Verstappen’s move on George Russell in Barcelona, which Lando Norris said reminded him of Mario Kart, Wolff told Sky Italia: “It was like certain taxi drivers in Rome or Naples, who go crazy in traffic.”
Demonstrating that no quip in the Formula 1 world goes unnoticed, the comment has drawn sharp criticism – from none other than the aforementioned taxi drivers.
“We’re better than the Formula 1 drivers, who wouldn’t even survive an hour in Rome’s city traffic,” said Loreno Bittarelli, president of the Roman taxi association Cooperativa Radiotaxi 3570.
He continued to Corriere della Sera: “We drive between construction sites, motorcycles, e-scooters, tourist buses. Rome is a jungle – much worse than a Formula 1 track.”
Some may suspect his comments are tongue-in-cheek, but Bittarelli insists Wolff should be careful with “false stereotypes”.
“We’re the first ones who don’t want to have accidents, because otherwise we’d lose the day’s work,” he said.
The Roman taxi union’s view was echoed by Filt-Cgil, the Italian federation of transport workers. “We drive as slowly as Mercedes here in Rome,” joked boss Nicola di Giacobbe.
“We are the most skilled drivers of all. But the traffic situation in this city is catastrophic. It now takes 30 minutes to cover two kilometres.”
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Toto’s remark was unnecessarily stereotypical, but I don’t quite get the ”as slowly as Mercedes’ reference unless it refers to Mercedes reverting to the same tactics as VCARB & Williams in Monaco.
Loreno Bittarelli’s claim that F1 drivers wouldn’t survive an hour in Rome’s traffic is perhaps a bit far-fetched.
Who knows, maybe some of them ought to take up that challenge someday.
30 minutes to cover 2 km seems exaggerated in any case & that certainly wasn’t the case when I visited the city in May 2019.
Its just a pisstake on how slow the Amg works cars are, they are having a sarcastic dig
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