Max Verstappen won 19 of the 22 grands prix last season and in F1 2024, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff “unfortunately” thinks the Red Bull driver will win almost all the races again.
Verstappen has in recent years established himself as top dog in Formula 1, the three-time World Champion looking to claim his fourth successive title in F1 2024.
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
And his quest got off to a very impressive start indeed in Bahrain, Verstappen leading home a Red Bull one-two, 22 seconds ahead of P2 finisher and team-mate Sergio Perez, while Verstappen made it the perfect haul of 26 points by also setting the fastest lap of the race.
That dominant drive from pole from Verstappen has sparked early fears over the competitiveness to come at the front in F1 2024, with an increase to 24 scheduled rounds meaning the possibility is there for Verstappen to break his own insane record of 19 wins set last season.
And when asked by media including PlanetF1.com whether Verstappen can win almost every race again in F1 2024, Wolff’s response was one which all drivers not named Max Verstappen will not have wanted to hear.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Wolff conceded.
“Look, today, I mean you just need to acknowledge his performance levels are really very strong.
“I think today Max is, he’s not in a different league, he’s in a different galaxy. The performance is extraordinary.”
So with Verstappen out of sight, Wolff believes that Mercedes’ F1 2024 fight will be with Ferrari and McLaren, as the Bahrain Grand Prix suggested.
Mercedes sacrificed one-lap performance for a setup which they believed would boost their race pace, though it proved unclear whether the gamble would have paid off, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell having encountered battery issues in the race, Russell suggesting the loss of power cost them four-tenths per lap.
The Ferraris were comfortable out of reach, while McLaren’s Lando Norris finished between Russell and Hamilton in P6, but with a well-executed race weekend, Wolff believes Mercedes will be taking the fight to Ferrari and McLaren this season.
“But I think everybody else, we saw the differences between the Ferraris and I believe that pretty much the group, Ferrari and McLaren and Mercedes were probably in a similar ballpark mark,” Wolff continued.
“We just need to look at ourselves, get on top of our problems and I think if we are able to manage our race weekend better, we will be racing those guys.”
Mercedes are on an extended spell without a taste of F1 victory, having not taken to the top step of the podium since Russell won the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix.
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