Audi respond to Toto Wolff gibe after first F1 Mercedes battle

Audi chief Allan McNish has responded to Toto Wolff's light-hearted jibe over their Singapore battle - pointing out that his car was ahead of one of Wolff's.

After the Lance Stroll virtual safety car was deployed, Mercedes' George Russell just missed the pit-entry under it and then boxed just as it was cancelled, meaning instead of rejoining at the head of a train of cars including Liam Lawson, Audi's Nico Hulkenberg, and Alpine's Pierre Gasly, he came out at the rear.

Russell quickly passed Gasly to close up on Hulkenberg, but despite having the favoured race tyre, the Briton was unable to pass the German, and was forced to settle for ninth as Hulkenberg took his best result of the season in eighth.

As Russell attempted to come through, the battle with Hulkenberg was briefly picked up on the world feed broadcast by FOM, leading to Mercedes chief Wolff's quip that the battle had given Audi some airtime, with the world feed usually concentrating on the leading cars or podium fights.

It was something McNish handed back to Wolff in a light-hearted manner.

"It was very nice of Toto, but we got airtime because we were ahead of one of his cars, I suppose," McNish told media, including RacingNews365, when presented with Wolff's comment.

"I thought that [Russell] had two or three laps, and if he didn't overtake Nico in those two or three laps, then Nico was going to be able to defend, and that was actually the case, because he was very good at the points on the circuit he needed to be.

"Actually, once the freshness of the tyre, as George had much freshe r tyres had gone, then actually, he didn't have the performance to overtake, like he did with Gasly, and we can be quite happy on our side.

"I suppose it is the first Audi-Mercedes battle."

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Equal to Mercedes and Red Bull

Audi is eighth in the standings, with its R26 chassis proving competitive on some tracks, but the team being let down by a lack of pure power from its first in-house power unit. 

However, McNish felt that Hulkenberg being able to hold off Russell and Red Bull's Isack Hadjar was a big step forward.

"It wasn't easy to come through, and Hadjar was well, but I expected George to cut through, Hadjar less so, but even Hadjar, when he got into clean air, couldn't catch [Hulkenberg]," he added.

"So at that point, in the last 10 laps of the race, we were equal to a Red Bull and equal to a Mercedes, which is not bad. We'll take that."