Wolff: Red Bull challenge 'eased pressure' at Mercedes

Toto Wolff says Mercedes' intense championship battle with rival Red Bull has eased the pressure at the Brackley squad rather than boosted stress levels.

The title fight between F1's two top competitors will resume at Spa this week, with Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton holding small points advantages over Red Bull and Max Verstappen in their respective championships.

However, the Brackley squad owes in large part its current lead to the adverse circumstances that befell its rival at Silverstone and at the Hungaroring, and which obliterated a points tally built on the back of five consecutive wins by Red Bull Racing.

Mercedes will have its work cut out to hold its edge when the action resumes next weekend, but interestingly, Wolff claims the heated battle hasn't hiked the pressure at Brackley but has rather eased the burden and strain of a team vying for its eighth consecutive world title.

"It eased off actually, because all these years we had the pressure of: we can't possibly lose," Wolff told Motorsport.com.

"Now it changed to: this is ours to win, because the odds were against us. So there is suddenly an easiness in the approach that starts to take over, which makes it quite enjoyable.

"Your expectations change. There is no sense of entitlement. This is what we've seen in other sports teams when the expectations are set so high that it becomes even unacceptable to lose.

"And I think with us, we conditioned ourselves. We set the expectations realistically, and we have just enjoyed the journey of getting us back in a position where we would be able to fight."

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Despite its outstanding winning record, intensely fighting a worthy adversary in the championship isn't a foreign concept for Mercedes who wrestled hard with Ferrari in 2018 and 2019.

Wolff compared his team's on track feuds with Mercedes' two main rivals which took place during different periods of hegemony for the German outfit.

"The Ferrari years felt more intense, because I think at that stage, we were so keen in proving that we weren’t a one-hit wonder," said the Austrian.

"We wanted to really create a legacy of being the top team for a few years, and now we've achieved that. We have won seven times in a row, which wasn't done in any other sport on a world championship level.

"With that, suddenly, that easiness came into play. We are still very ambitious and competitive. But the anxiety of losing has lost its edge. We still hate it, but it is less detrimental to your own well-being."

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