by VALERIO BARRETTA
Wolff courts Verstappen
Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari could generate a domino effect with unthinkable consequences. Of course there Mercedes she hasn't put much of a spotlight on herself, but Toto Wolff hopes that the chaos at Red Bull can suggest to Max Verstappen and his family to have a change of scenery. In that case, there would be only one destination for the world champion: the Brackley team, the only one among the best four (considering the W15 superior to Aston Martin) looking for a driver for 2025.
Wolff first tried the direct approach with Jos Verstappen, then he tried to make Red Bull nervous (“Max decides between car and values“), Now he speaks realistically about a possible arrival of Super Max in his court. A marriage that sooner or later will have to happen, according to the Austrian.
Wolff's words
“We have an open seat, and we are the only one among the top teams to have it, unless Max decides to leave. In that case, we would no longer have a free seat“, these are his words to Fox Sports, in which he explains how Mercedes is waiting for the evolution of the relationship between Verstappen and Red Bull. “It's a kind of wedding that has to happen at some point, even if we don't know when“.
The Mercedes team principal added that Verstappen could have raced for Mercedes. In fact, a conversation with father Jos dates back to 2014 in which the Austrian offered Max a seat in F2 and the promise to make his debut (in Mercedes or elsewhere) for 2016. But the Dutch refused: “I saw him in Formula 3 and he was very good. I have a good relationship with his father, we sat at my house in Vienna: I wanted to make him do F2 and then give him a place in F1 the following year. But Jos told me they had an offer from Red Bull to drive Toro Rosso, and I knew we wouldn't be able to match it.“.
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