THE BIG GLAD WOLFF

Mercedes chief Toto: The other teams are ganging up on us by trying to slow us down..we say: Bring it on

TOTO WOLFF has told F1 rivals attempting to slow down his all-conquering Mercedes team: “Bring it on.”

The Silver Arrows have enjoyed yet another onesided campaign so far, winning six of the opening seven races and securing every pole position available.

But in a bid to make it a level playing field, teams must now run their engines in the same mode in both qualifying and the race, after the FIA issued a technical directive aimed at making it easier to monitor power units. Until now drivers could use different modes for more performance when needed, particularly in qualifying, which has seen the Silver Arrows exploit xploit their so-called ‘party ty mode’.

But Wo l f f believes the decision is an obvious sign that Mercedes s are head and shoulders ers above their rivals on the grid.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Italian GP, he said: “Everybody is trying to slow us down – and we are trying the best to maintain the gaps. It’s frustrating as we have optimised our power unit for qualifying performance because we think starting at the front is important. “But I also understand the dynam dynamic between the FIA an and the other teams t to somehow slow us down. It has always happened in the past when teams run away in the championships, that other teams gang up on them. That is the case with Mercedes but bring it on.” Lewis Hamilton sees the clampdown on engine modes as a compliment. The six-time world champ (left) said: “All I can say is, I’m really proud of my guys because we obviously did a great job.

“Everyone has a party mode. You go throu g h qualifying, you have multiple settings. You go through practice, you have multiple settings. And when you get to t he end of qualifying, you generally try to use the most powerful, which you can’t use all the time.

“What’s crazy is this switch.

They’ve said it’s for one reason and then you’ve got Red Bull, who came out and said, ‘ No, no, we were going after them to hold them back!’. So someone is not telling the truth!

“All we can do is smile and keep working hard. It’s a compliment at the end of the day.”

Valtteri Bottas t o p ped the timesheets in morning practice at Monza yesterday, before Hamilton charged to the front in the second session.