{"id":509530,"date":"2025-10-18T13:42:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/509530\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T13:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:42:13","slug":"i-was-straightforward-and-fair-with-mercedes-drivers-amid-verstappen-flirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/509530\/","title":{"rendered":"I was “straightforward and fair” with Mercedes drivers amid Verstappen flirt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercedes<\/a> team principal Toto Wolff believes he handled the 2026 Formula 1 driver market \u201cin the most straightforward and fair way\u201d.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s despite Wolff wooing four-time world champion Max Verstappen<\/a> until it emerged that the Red Bull driver would be unable to activate a performance clause to exit his Red Bull contract early; the speculation cast doubt on incumbents George Russell<\/a> and Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a>\u2019s short-term future.<\/p>\n

Mercedes eventually made an unchanged line-up official on Wednesday ahead of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

Wolff told Sky Sports F1 on Friday that he was going to learn from what he called a \u201cmistake\u201d, insisting \u201cthere\u00a0wasn\u2019t any on-purpose flirting\u201d and claiming this was \u201cjust a coincidence\u201d, while admitting the uncertainty over the driver line-up ended up being \u201cdestabilising for everyone\u201d.<\/p>\n

Subsequently asked by Autosport in the Friday press conference if he had experienced any conflicting moments when negotiating 2026 deals, given he called it his \u2018responsibility\u2019 to find out where Verstappen\u2019s future lay, Wolff said more confidently: \u201cBeing open and transparent is the best path forward. Sometimes it bites you a bit. And when you look back, maybe certain events could have been better \u2013 coincidences that happened. But I\u2019ve always done it in the most straightforward and fair way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stand by the driver choices \u2013 by George and Kimi. Like I said, this is the full focus, and that was always the aim, throughout the more tricky part over the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even after Verstappen was ruled out of the driver market, it took two and a half months for Mercedes to finalise its 2026 contracts, with Russell\u2019s contractual PR appearances allegedly the main issue.<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andy Hone \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

With hindsight, Wolff insisted this line-up was a \u201cno-brainer\u201d and there was \u201cnever\u201d any doubt rookie Antonelli was going to make progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always the decision that we took from the get-go,\u201d the Austrian said. \u201cIt was the lineup that we chose last year. We knew that George can hold up the leadership role in there. It\u2019s been really great, and Kimi is in a learning year. So going forward, it was pretty much a no-brainer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at [Antonelli\u2019s] junior record, his personality, there’s no doubt in me or within the team that it was the wrong decision to take and give him the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonelli finished the last two grands prix in the top five after a tough European spell in what Wolff still calls \u201ca learning season\u201d. The Mercedes team boss reckons the 19-year-old Italian will gain competitiveness in his sophomore campaign as F1 moves on to brand-new cars in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have five or six races to go \u2013 tracks that he doesn’t know,\u201d Wolff pointed out. \u201cAustin is one of them. I’m sure we’re going to see some very good results. We’re going to see trickier sessions and trickier weekends.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut all of that is being reset with the start of next season. He will have seen the tracks. The cars are new for every driver \u2013 that\u2019s a big factor. These guys have been around these cars for a while, and he will have seen how to best manage pressure from the media and all of the stakeholders. That was the aim for this season \u2013 to do exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Ronald Vording<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes he handled the 2026 Formula 1 driver market \u201cin the most straightforward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[13328,163541,4199,707,4200,1073,4859,79,16,15,163611,166720],"class_list":{"0":"post-509530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","9":"tag-circuit-of-the-americas","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-max-verstappen","14":"tag-mercedes","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-united-states-gp","19":"tag-wolff-i-was-straightforward-and-fair-with-mercedes-drivers-amid-verstappen-flirt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115395464432087268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}