Toto Wolff says Red Bull “was” the dominant car earlier this year but that’s changed, prompting him to keep the “communication channel open” with Max Verstappen over a future Mercedes drive.
Wolff has made no secret about wanting Verstappen in a Mercedes car in the future, but it won’t happen next season given the driver’s insistence he will remain a Red Bull driver.
Although Verstappen has a long-term contract with Red Bull, one that runs through to the end of 2028, the tide has begun to turn this season with McLaren overhauling Red Bull as the car to beat while Mercedes have also made inroads with their W15’s upgrades.
The Dutchman still leads the Drivers’ Championship with his 70-point advantage enough to ensure he only has to finish P2 in the remaining nine races to make it four titles in four years.
But with everything that has been going on at Red Bull, from Verstappen’s frustrations over their “not good enough” upgrades to the off-track niggles that saw his father Jos call for Christian Horner to step down as the team principal, Wolff says “conversations” about the future have taken place.
“Red Bull was the dominant car at the beginning of the season,” the Mercedes motorsport boss told BBC Sport. “And that changed a bit. It’s Max Verstappen dominant at the moment.
“And the relationships were dysfunctional. I’m not sure they are back in a great place, but it is what it is.
“There was a moment, or there was an opportunity, to at least have conversations of what it could be in the future, and this is what we did.”
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko recently downplayed Wolff’s conversations with Verstappen, Jos, and Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen as nothing more than chats over coffee in Monaco.
Speaking about the Austrian’s interest in signing Red Bull’s star driver, he told Inside Line F1 podcast: “He wouldn’t be a good team principal if he didn’t try to get Max. I think every top team would like to have Max.
“The other story is all the people live in Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo when there is not a Grand Prix is a quiet place, and there are not so many coffee shops so it’s natural you run into each other, and of course, Toto makes stories out of it.”
Wolff, though, says his “communication channel” with Verstappen’s people is “open”.
“We have not given each other any, let’s say, timings,” he said. “It is more like, keep the communication channel open, while knowing that his priority is to make it function with Red Bull and our priority will be to make it function with the two drivers we have.”
