Wolff defends tantrum: 'That's just totally unjustified'

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur did not hide his anger when Carlos Sainz was hit by a loose manhole cover, only to get a grid penalty on his trousers as well. However, it was Toto Wolff who had a real temper tantrum, but for a completely different reason.

Wolff went on quite a rant against a journalist who claimed the incident in the first free practice session was a 'black eye' for Formula 1. The Mercedes team boss fumed that it meant nothing and that everyone would have forgotten about it the next day. "Completely ridiculous," he said of all the fuss.

Asked about his outburst during the press conference, Wolff explained to the German branch of Sky Sports that it was "the usual suspects who simply badmouth everything". "When you look at this building, the effort that has been made here to build a racetrack in the middle of Las Vegas on the Strip in two years, and then you come up with little niggles like that, it's just totally out of place," said the 51-year-old Austrian.

"For me, it was like a journalist bursting in and starting to shout that the track is the very last thing, and that is simply totally unjustified. That's not fair to the work that has been done here.," said the Mercedes team boss.