Wolff does not know if Mercedes was faster than Verstappen on track
F1 News
- Cas van de Kleut
For the third race in a row, Mercedes has beaten Red Bull Racing. Recently, the German team has been making great strides and that is reflected on the track, while Red Bull has been struggling more and more. Toto Wolff responds to GPblog and others on whether the competitive picture has changed at the team that has been dominant since 2022.
In Austria, Mercedes was still beating Red Bull because of the chaos between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen. At Silverstone, this was already no longer the case and at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the Dutchman also struggled more with the Mercedes' speed than before.
Was Verstappen faster than Mercedes
Despite this, Wolff told after the Hungarian Grand Prix: "I don't know if we were faster than Max today. We beat him on the track. Probably not on pure race time. But you have to admit that McLaren is clearly in the lead now in all conditions. They deserve a 1-2. That's the new benchmark."
Wolff continued: "It's great that we have another team that has made a jump and can finish first and second. That's good for all of us. But under these conditions, we were just never good. We weren't at the level to reach them."
This article was written in collaboration with Ben Stevens.