Wolff rubbishes Marko's Schumacher claim

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has rubbished Helmut Marko's claims that he tried to place Mick Schumacher into a race seat at AlphaTauri.

Schumacher was dropped from his Haas drive last year after an error-strewn campaign and, unable to find a race seat for 2023, opted to take a reserve driver role with Mercedes.

Wolff has since been open about his desire to see Schumacher back in a race seat, but Marko suggested that the Mercedes team boss had used his influence to try to place Schumacher at AlphaTauri.

Speaking to German television channel Sport1, Marko claimed that Wolff tried to arrange a meeting with Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff to discuss the possibility of a move for Schumacher.

"It was mentioned at a meeting," said Marko.

"It's just stupid that Mr Wolff at the same time openly made politics against us at the FIA ​​​​again. With that, the topic was off the table.

"Why should we take Schumacher? He is a Mercedes driver, Mr Wolff is responsible for him.

"If he thinks so highly of him, why not let him drive in his own team or use his influence to get him into a customer team like Williams?"

Wolff 'never spoke to Red Bull leadership'

For his part, Wolff denied that events had occurred as Marko had suggested, adding that he felt many in F1 were too quick to judge Schumacher negatively.

"I'm not even sure that we can facilitate, because every time we speak highly on [Schumacher], somebody feels like saying something negative," Wolff told media, including RacingNews365.com.

"As a little aside, I never spoke to the Red Bull leadership about giving Mick a place there the way it was said by Helmut.

"Wherever I can speak highly and praise Mick, that's what I'm doing. But at the end, it's every team's authority to decide on the drivers."