Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Mercedes to switch Wehrlein focus to F1 after DTM title

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Mercedes will only start to focus on getting Pascal Wehrlein in to Formula One after he secures the DTM championship.

Wehrlein currently leads the standings by 37 points heading in to the final pair of races in Hockenheim this weekend, with a maximum of 50 points available. The German has been linked with a drive at Manor after Mercedes finalised a deal to supply the former Marussia team with power units from 2016 onwards, but Toto Wolff told F1i the main focus will only switch to F1 once his DTM season is complete.

“His next duty is to win the DTM championship and he has a solid points advantage but it’s not done, and that’s a fact," Wolff said ahead of this weekend's DTM title decider. "Once that box is ticked we’re going to look at Formula One.

"Pascal has been with us for a while now and he has shown strong performance in testing, now he’s ready for then next step. We haven’t figured out yet what to do.”

And Wolff insists there is no long-term plan to eventually see Wehrlein as a future replacement for either Nico Rosberg or Lewis Hamilton.

“It’s too far-fetched because at the moment both of our drivers are contracted to us. We enjoy working with them, so we can’t have the discussion yet because I’m still concentrated on Nico and Lewis.”

Wehrlein has previously tested for both Mercedes and Force India, but any hopes of securing him a drive at the latter ended when Force India announced an unchanged line-up of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez for 2016.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.