Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff believes the 2024 Formula 1 season will still be “exciting” despite his admission that Max Verstappen will remain uncatchable.
Red Bull has taken over Mercedes’ mantle as the pre-eminent force in F1 since the return to ground effect cars in 2022, winning all but two races since last season.
Having retired from the previous race in Australia, Verstappen and Red Bull continued their dominance in Suzuka to register a third 1-2 finish in four races this term.
Verstappen, who is gunning for a fourth consecutive Drivers’ title in 2024, wound up 20 seconds up the road from Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who finished in third position.
Wolff has conceded that the destination of this season’s championship has been decided, with the battle now on who will finish runner-up to the reigning champions.
“No one is going to catch Max this year,” Wolff declared. “His driving and the car is just spectacular. You can see the way he manages the tyres.
“And basically this season now is best of the rest. That’s the fight that’s on.”
Mercedes trailed home seventh and ninth at Suzuka as its disappointing season continued, leaving the marque rooted to fourth place in the Constructors’ standings.
But despite the squad’s current 86-point deficit to Ferrari, Wolff remains hopeful that Mercedes can improve enough to replicate its second-place from last season.
“Hopefully we can catch up to the McLaren and to the Ferraris and fight for P2,” he added. “This is what it is this year and what it was last year. We had a P2 last year.”
F1 sustained an exponential boom back in 2021 during Verstappen’s maiden title season that saw Red Bull and Mercedes battle it out to the last lap of the final race.
However, Verstappen and Red Bull’s stranglehold on the top step of the podium in recent times has prompted concern that new fans could lose interest in the sport.
But Wolff contends that it would be wrong to brand his rival’s success as a bad thing for F1, arguing that the onus is on Red Bull’s competitors to provide a challenge.
Asked what he would suggest to retain the audience’s absorption in the action with 20 races remaining, Wolff replied: “I think I wouldn’t say it like this, because the guys who are ahead are the deserving winner and I believe that we’ve seen the Ferraris more closer to him than some of the previous racers. I think we can be closer to the Ferraris than we’ve shown today.
“It is still exciting. I don’t know what the race was for you guys to watch, I’m just looking at our cars in split time so I never have a correct picture of what’s actually happening out there.
“But I believe it’s pretty close between P3 and P2 at times and P8.
“In that respect, there will be some action and we just got to push ourselves to provide a better showing and eventually challenge them.”
