Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has sounded a warning about Red Bull’s growing competitiveness after Max Verstappen claimed a dominant victory at the Singapore Grand Prix, completing back-to-back wins over the Silver Arrows in as many weekends.
Verstappen delivered a near-perfect performance at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, taking pole position and winning both Saturday’s Sprint and Sunday’s Grand Prix. The result followed his victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia the previous weekend — his first win of the season — as Red Bull’s recent development push begins to bear fruit.
“You need to take your hat off for what Red Bull has done this season, how they have developed the car and how it’s all come together as a package,” Wolff told media after the Singapore race. “And then you put Max Verstappen in the car, and when he feels that this thing is driving like he wants it to drive, then these are the results. He’s been by far the quickest guy today, he’s been the quickest guy in Kuala Lumpur.”
Despite Mercedes sitting on the cusp of both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, Wolff made clear that next season will be a different contest. “One thing is for sure, next year it’s full on — the fight between the teams and Red Bull is part of that,” he said.
Mercedes arrived in Singapore running an unusual split-specification strategy after a major upgrade introduced in Malaysia proved inconclusive. Kimi Antonelli ran the new-specification car while George Russell drove the previous version — the same package with which he won in Baku. Antonelli finished third at Marina Bay, while Russell recovered to ninth after starting from the back of the grid due to power unit component changes.
Wolff acknowledged the upgrade has not yet delivered the performance gains Mercedes anticipated. “I think that this new car needs a very different set-up philosophy than the previous car. And this is what we’re learning at the moment,” he said. “Was it an easy car today like the previous one? I don’t think it was. Does it have the performance that we were hoping the upgrade would bring? I don’t think so yet. But it was a step in the right direction.”
Wolff said the team’s next opportunity to assess the upgrade’s true potential will come at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, where Mercedes hopes to determine whether the new specification can provide a meaningful performance gain — a result he described as crucial for the team’s development direction heading into next season.