After being questioned about a suspicious car part on his way out of the paddock, James Allison joked that he was carrying a nose cone ‘full of cocaine’.
During Ted Kravitz’s iconic post-race ‘notebook’ segment on Sky Sports F1, the pit lane reporter stumbled across Allison on his way out of the paddock.
Mercedes’ technical director was carrying a car part shrouded in bubble wrap, which prevented Kravitz from peeking inside. “Whatever happened to the nose cone?” he inquired. “I’ve got no idea,” Allison laughed. “It’s just part of the stuff we take to and fro.” Kravitz then shuffled around to get a better view, but the Mercedes chief backed away in reaction.
Why aren’t you letting me look in the nose cone?” Kravitz probed. Allison joked back: “Because I don’t know what is in there… it might be all of our cocaine!”
Kravitz was taken shocked by Allison’s daring response, laughing before adding, “James!” Do not say… such a naughty man; off you go. It’s not that; he’s simply kidding!” Fortunately for Allison and Mercedes, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix provided plenty more for the Silver Arrows to shout about, as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished sixth and seventh, respectively.
While the result in itself was nothing to write home about, Toto Wolff will be delighted to leave Imola off the back of a consistent and relatively issue-free weekend.
“You can’t see it on the result that we are making steps with where we want the car to be, Wolff told Sky Sports F1 after the race. “We are 30-plus seconds off the quickest guys and that’s a lot P6 and P7 us nothing to be proud of
You can hear the frustration in my voice but there is more to come and it’s incremental, marginal gains we need to make. This is how the sport goes.”