Toto Wolff reacts to wife Susie’s criminal complaint against FIA

Toto Wolff says his wife, Susie, wants “accountability” after taking legal action against F1’s governing body the FIA.

On the eve of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, F1 Academy director Susie Wolff announced she had filed a criminal complaint against the FIA following its controversial conflict of interest inquiry into her in December.

The FIA launched and then quickly dropped an investigation into a magazine’s claims that rival teams had expressed concerns her relationship with husband Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, presented a conflict of interest in the sport.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton praised Wolff’s “brave” action and slammed F1 for having “no transparency and no accountability”.

“First of all Susie is a strong woman, she doesn’t take anything from anyone and has always followed through on her convictions and values, and that’s the case here,” Mercedes boss Wolff told Sky.

“She’s very unemotional about it and pragmatic. She feels wrong was done and the court needs to hear that. Nothing is going to bring her off that path. That’s how her character is.

"It is the case and a fact that all year now we have been talking about cases of intransparency and various other factors which are just not great. This is what Lewis referred to.

"We should talk about the great of the sport and not the other stuff, but it needs to be pointed to.”

Wolff said it is important that such matters are not “brushed under the carpet”.

"I think Susie, she’s started that process many months ago, she’s done it very diligently as far as I’m concerned and it will go all the way,” he added.

“I think it matters for her the most to find out what happened, that people take accountability and responsibility and things are not brushed under the carpet. I think we as a sport need to do that in all areas, whether it is Susie’s case or whether it is some case with the other teams.

“Overall, this sport has such a massive platform and doing so well. Maybe sometimes we need to take it out of the jurisdiction of our sport and into the real world and see what that does.”

Asked if he thinks it will be a watershed moment for the sport, Wolff replied: “No I don’t think there is such thing as a watershed moment.

“I just think that at a certain stage we shouldn’t be just getting those hits and accepting them in all areas, to make this sport as transparent as it should be considering its importance in the world.”