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Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff believes that the outcome of the 2024 season is already as good as decided.
Despite glimpses of competition from Ferrari, McLaren and even Mercedes, the fact is that the Red Bull steamroller continues on its merry way, with only the blip of a brake issue in Australia marring a clean sweep for its star driver.
Though Ferrari is currently best of the rest, ahead of McLaren, neither appears to be anywhere near a position to regularly take on the Austrian team, while Mercedes finds itself under threat from Aston Martin.
“No one is going to catch Max this year,” said Wolff after the Dutchman claimed his third win of the season, cruising home over 20 seconds ahead of the next non-Red Bull car.
“His driving and the car are just spectacular,” he added. “You can see the way he manages the tyres, and basically this season now is (about) best of the rest.
“That’s the fact, that is all, but hopefully we can catch up to the to the McLarens and to the Ferraris and fight for P2. This is what it is this year and what is was last year and we had a P2 last year.”
Appearing to take a leaf out of the Austrian’s book, Verstappen played down the claim, though stopping short of suggesting that the superiority of his package almost made him the underdog.
“Lately, Toto has been really nice, saying a lot of nice things about me!” laughed the Dutchman. “No, I don’t know. It’s still a very long season.
“I don’t want to think about the rest of the season too much,” he added. “I really want to approach it race by race. I know there will be tracks coming up that might not be so favourable for us, but then, of course, when we do get to tracks where we know that we can be quick, we have to really take advantage of it and score the maximum amount of points as a team, and that’s what we’ll continue to try and do.
“Then, of course, I think we know that we get to tracks where maybe it’s a bit more difficult we have to try and maximise that as well, where maybe other teams can win.”
“If your expectation is to eventually race for wins and for championships you can say we are in a bit of no man’s land,” said Wolff, “because Max and Red Bull are far ahead.
“It is not satisfying for a team fighting for P2, P3 and P4,” he added. “If I was to look from a pure sporting point of view it is P1 what matters, not P2, P3 or P4 but this is the reality that we are facing at the moment.”
Check out our Sunday gallery from Suzuka here.
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