Wolff Refuses 'To Fall In Trap' Of 'Fellow Team Principal From Next Door'

Wednesday, 13 March 2024 at 15:00

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff asserted he doesn't want to fall into the trap of his "fellow team principal" amid Red Bull's dominance.

If we focus solely on performance on track, the Red Bull Racing team started the 2024 season in the best imaginable way.

Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez secured a one-two for the Austrian team during both the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. This is disappointing for many fans who hoped there would be someone to challenge Red Bull.

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Some suggest that FIA and FOM (Formula One management) should step in with a new set of regulations to artificially slow down the team from Milton Keynes and make the battle for the Championship more attractive. However, the team principal of Mercedes, Toto Wolff, disagrees, as he said:

"I don’t want to fall in the trap of my fellow team principal from next door [Red Bull team boss Christian Horner] in 2014 or ’15. He said we should change the regs because [Mercedes is] too dominant."

During the dominance of Mercedes in 2015, Christian Horner called for the "regulator and the governing body to come up with a set of rules" that would equal the playing field, as reported by Eurosport.com.

Back then, he argued that people would "inevitably" lose interest in the sport of Formula 1 with the element of "predictability." Mercedes team principal, on the other hand, highlighted the amazing job that Red Bull is currently doing.

"I think they’ve [Red Bull] done by far the best job of all the teams over the last two years and credit where credit is due."

"I think they've done by far the best job of all the teams over the last two years and credit where credit is due. I mean they are literally disappearing in the distance as they want, and there's nobody else close."

As of now, Ferrari seems to be the closest challenger to Red Bull. But they are still around three-tenths per lap slower than the team from Milton Keynes.

"They had Ferrari today, Leclerc a little bit and if Sainz would have been here, they would have been second best on the road."

Wolff also said that the current regulations seem to work well because all the remaining teams are equally matched. He added:

"But there is not this huge performance differential between everybody that follows up and down. Depending on the track, it's just that they are in a different league."