After almost a year of misery for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, Mercedes backtracked on their concept design to find performance. The team is desperate to find performance in any way they can, especially with the budget cap. Throwing money at your problems is not a solution. With this in mind, it has become extremely difficult for Mercedes to catch Max Verstappen in his vastly superior Red Bull. However, Mercedes is doing everything in their power to change that. In fact, the Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is ready to sacrifice every penny he has in order to achieve this target.
The Austrian sat down with the CNBC news to discuss a few aspects of life in Formula 1. Among many topics, the topic of being and becoming a winning constructor came up. To be specific, Wolff was asked to reveal the significance of winning the championship. This is when he confessed how significant the championship is to the team.
“It is significant. I would give up every profit just to win on track, which for a normal business owner may sound crazy. But it’s how we are calibrated. It’s the stopwatch that counts, less so the P&L. But Mercedes, we’ve dominated for a long time. We’ve won eight consecutive championships and now Red Bull’s just doing a better job, it’s meritocracy! Best engineering wins as long as you respect the rules – we just need to stretch ourselves better,” said Wolff in the interview.
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Red Bull is in an extremely comfortable position with their development, enough to mock the others. However, they still can’t rest on their laurels. Verstappen certainly isn’t.
Lewis Hamilton considered a threat by Max Verstappen despite the disappointments
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The Dutchman is currently in an extremely comfortable position with his car and his standing at the championship points table. However, this doesn’t mean he is undermining the quality of his rivals. In fact, he still fears the threat of Lewis Hamilton who will challenge him for the championship sooner or later.
Verstappen admitted to that in an interview when asked if Hamilton is a threat to him. He said, “Of course, he is. You know he’s been one of the greatest drivers in the sport. So, it’s sure if he has the car to do it, he can fight for the title again.”
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The W14 is still not up to the mark to challenge the RB19. However, with what we’ve seen so far after the side pod design change, the German team is on the right track and might soon become competitive enough.