{"id":39888,"date":"2026-06-14T01:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T01:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/39888\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T01:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T01:52:14","slug":"toto-wolff-admits-lewis-hamilton-threat-after-barcelona-f1-qualifying-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/39888\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff admits Lewis Hamilton threat after Barcelona F1 qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/mercedes\/5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mercedes<\/a> team principal Toto Wolff has admitted that he remains cautious of the threat posed by seven-time Formula 1 champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/driver\/lewis-hamilton\/1278\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, conceding that his former driver will be a major obstacle in tomorrow&#8217;s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Sky Sports F1 following a close qualifying session, Wolff explained that when Hamilton is &#8220;in the right frame of mind and the car suits him, he is to be reckoned with&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>While it was Mercedes driver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/driver\/george-russell\/21167\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">George Russell<\/a> who took pole position in Barcelona, Hamilton claimed the grid slot alongside him in P2. Russell&#8217;s team-mate Kimi Antonelli will start the grand prix from third.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My old friend&#8230; when people doubted whether he still had the speed, I&#8217;ve always said if he&#8217;s in the right frame of mind and the car suits him, then he is to be reckoned with,&#8221; Wolff said when asked if he was worried about his former driver.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You need to count him in and that&#8217;s what he did today.\u00a0If there isn&#8217;t a tiny mistake at the end, he is a tenth-and-a-half quicker than us.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s going to play out in tyre degradation and we were quite good in the long run yesterday &#8211; but it all depends on the start.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/toto-wolff-mercedes.jpg\" alt=\"Toto Wolff, Mercedes\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Toto Wolff, Mercedes<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Simon Galloway \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If Lewis is ahead after the start, that&#8217;s going to be a tough one for everyone, so I&#8217;m really curious to see how that pans out.&#8221;<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Hamilton left the\u00a0Brackley outfit, where he won six of his seven championship titles, for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/ferrari\/3\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ferrari<\/a> in 2025. Although he struggled in his first season with the Maranello team, he has managed to bounce back as he seemingly enjoys the new regulations in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The British driver&#8217;s second-place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix, which was his third podium of the season, meant that he overtook Russell in the drivers&#8217; championship to take\u00a0second behind Antonelli.<\/p>\n<p>            We want your opinion!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-auto\">What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"#\" class=\"ms-link text-link font-bold\">Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-1 text-body\">&#8211; The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has admitted that he remains cautious of the threat posed by seven-time Formula&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,17989,18329,11454,315,13765,17797,18002,18614,1699],"class_list":["post-39888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-catalunya-gp","tag-f1-barcelona-catalunya-grand-prix","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-mercedes","tag-toto-wolff","tag-toto-wolff-admits-lewis-hamilton-threat-after-barcelona-f1-qualifying","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}