2018 season 'a marvellous advertisement for F1' - Wolff

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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says that this season's world championship is the most exciting that he has ever been involved in, and a terrific shop window to show off the sport's best features to current and prospective fans.

The team has come out on top of the standings in the last four seasons, but this year has seen things closer than ever with their arch rivals Ferrari.

The lead of both the drivers and constructors has gone back and forth with almost every race over the last few weeks.

Victory in Hungary has given Lewis Hamilton a 24 point lead over Sebastian Vettel in the former, while Mercedes has a slender ten point margin over Ferrari in the latter.

"The battle at the top is more exciting than ever before," said Wolff, who added that the close fight didn't end there. "Things are also very tight in the midfield.

"The races have not only produced some great wheel-to-wheel action on the track but also some surprise winners," he pointed out. "Seven of the twelve races so far were not necessarily won by the fastest car.

"All in all, I would say that the 2018 season has been a marvellous advertisement for the sport," he added.

Wolff keeping close tabs on Force India situation

Naturally, as a team principal Wolff would be far happier if Mercedes were dominating the season and running away with both titles. But even though by his own admission the team has 'left points on the table' at a few events this season, Wolff is broadly happy with the state of affairs.

"For us as a team, the half-term report is a positive one, as we are currently leading both world championships.

"We owe this to the efforts of our team in Brackley and Brixworth, and to the driving skills of Lewis and Valtteri. A

"t the same time, though, we also realise that we have dropped points in more than one race, so we are going flat out to boost performance even more for the second half of the season."

"We will be working very hard on that right up to the weekend when the summer break officially begins as decreed by the regulations."

Formula 1's rules mandate a complete two-week break of all work at every team's headquarters.

It means that all team personnel get to go on holiday. It's a much needed break after a number of back-to-back race weekends including F1's first ever 'triple header' in June and July.

"It's a break that everyone on our team has more than earned," agreed Wolff.

"We will then come back refreshed with the necessary energy to raise our game even further in the second half of the season."

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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.