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Toto Wolff has accused the FIA's Charlie Whiting of throwing Mercedes "under a bus".
Doubts about the legality of Ferrari's 2018 car have subsided after comprehensive checks in Barcelona and Monaco.
But in clarifying that Ferrari has the green light, FIA race director Whiting revealed that it was James Allison and Lorenzo Sassi - both former Ferrari officials who are now at Mercedes - who blew the whistle.
"He (Allison) came to us and said 'This guy (Sassi) started working for us and told us that Ferrari might try to be doing this'," Whiting is quoted as saying by Iltalehti newspaper.
The fact that the FIA named Mercedes' whistle-blowers enraged Mercedes team boss Wolff.
Asked if he felt his team had been thrown under a bus, he answered: "Yes.
"If one of my individuals is named in a wrong context, that is disturbing," Wolff said.
"Various teams question with the FIA every single day and I think it is not important to put someone out there, saying 'this person is questioning a legality problem'.
"Picking out individuals is not the right thing to do. Some of the things that were said were cherry-picked," added Wolff.
But Whiting protested that he saw nothing wrong with the process regarding Mercedes' clarification about the Ferrari car.
"Don't forget that Lorenzo's information is at least eight months old," he said.
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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calle.itw
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I'd actually agree with Toto here, its irresponsible to talk like that about the "whistle blowers". This potentially hinders them from doing the same in the future, and more so might prevent them from finding work in another team.