Wolff: Only major 'screw-up' will derail Red Bull clean sweep

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff believes Red Bull will achieve a one hundred per cent win rate this season unless the Milton Keynes outfit itself "screw things up".

On Sunday at Monza, championship leader Max Verstappen entered unchartered territory when he claimed his tenth consecutive win this season after defeating Ferrari in the Italian Grand Prix.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says his outfit is taking it one race at a time and isn't thinking about achieving a clean sweep campaign, a feat that has never been accomplished in the history of F1 although McLaren came close in 1988.

But Wolff sees no reason for Red Bull to stumble in any of the remaining eight rounds of the 2023 championship given its supremacy, unless it makes a mess of things on its own.

• Read also: Wolff: Verstappen record good for a mention in 'Wikipedia'

"I think they need to screw it up themselves in order not to win every race this season," said Wolff after Red Bull's win in Italy.

"And by the way, that's a record I would think is a good one because that is perfection. We didn't make it because our two pushed each other out in Barcelona [in 2016] and then we had an engine failure in Malaysia."

Wolff's prospective praise for Red Bull's potentially flawless season came after the Austrian dismissed the significance of Verstappen most consecutive wins record which he claimed was only worthy of a mention in Wikipedia, "and nobody reads that anyway".

"For me these kinds of records are completely irrelevant," he said. "They were irrelevant in our good days in Mercedes, and I don't know how many races we won in a row.

"I didn't even know that there was a count of how many races you win.

"Therefore, asking me for commenting on some achievement is difficult because it never played a role in my whole life.

"But the result itself shows that a great driver in a great car is competing on an extremely high level."

Although Verstappen's triumph looked relatively straightforward once Ferrari's threat had subsided, the Dutchman said that he had to work hard for his 47th career win in F1.

Wolff admitted having been entertained by Sunday's race, thanks in large part to Ferrari's challenge and to the inter-team battle enjoyed by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in the closing stages of the event.

"I think it's good that Ferrari is on the podium and maybe they deserved it a little bit more," he said.

"It was quite entertaining at the end, watching it. I had some flashback memories that came up to my mind of are we interfering or are we letting them push each other out?

"I think great, great spectacle for the tifosi. It gave some good entertainment and it's just an unbelievable ambience here. It doesn't go any better than Monza."

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