F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Wolff sees F1 title race going down to the wire

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff believes this year’s Formula One title fight between his drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg will go down to the wire.

The German enjoyed a perfect start to his 2016 campaign, racking up four consecutive victories to open a 43-point gap over his British rival. However, Hamilton has won five of the last six races, including the recent Hungarian Grand Prix, to emerge six points clear of his team-mate in the standings.

Asked whether he feels Rosberg will now struggle to challenge Hamilton, Wolff replied: “No, I don’t think so because at the beginning of the season he won so many points against Lewis and you see it swings in both directions.

“I think at that stage it’s important to finish, the car is capable of winning a race and being solidly on the podium. It’s about avoiding mistakes, DNFs are what can cost you the championship.

“And I think we are going to see that the momentum continue to swing throughout the season and my feeling is that the championship is going to go to the end.

“I remember we had the same discussion when Nico was doing really well at the end of last season and he maintained that momentum into the current year and he was outperforming Lewis quite a lot at the beginning.

“Everyone said ‘Is this the new Nico?’ And then it turned around but there is no single event I could attribute to a change of performance.”

Although Mercedes has a healthy lead in both championships, Wolff does not want to play down any threat from Ferrari and Red Bull over the second half of the season.

“I think if you have that attitude you are going to be beaten. You need to see the threat and you need to be conscious that at any track somebody could do a better job, but equally you must keep in mind that next season is important and the changes in regulations is important.

“We’re trying to stay pretty unemotional about the situation, just deploy the best possible engineering, the way that we prepare for the race and the way we execute the race and deploy the track side engineering.

“Equally the team in the UK needs to work as good as possible for next year and not get drawn into 2016 and that is a constant balance.”

Technical analysis - Budapest

DRIVER RATINGS: Hungarian Grand Prix

REPORT: Hamilton holds off Rosberg to take championship lead

Breakfast with ... Marc Surer

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Julien Billiotte

Recent Posts

Williams' headaches persist into Vegas practice

Williams is continuing to fight uphill battles this weekend in Las Vegas as a knock-on…

3 mins ago

Ferrari's Sainz 'not satisfied with where we are' in Vegas

It was a solid start to the Las Vegas weekend for Ferrari with Carlos Sainz…

1 hour ago

Norris labels McLaren long-run pace ‘shocking’ in chilly Vegas

Lando Norris didn’t hold back in his assessment of McLaren’s performance on the opening day…

2 hours ago

Hamilton delighted with ‘consistently strong day’ in Vegas

Lewis Hamilton was particularly happy with his opening day of running at the Las Vegas…

4 hours ago

Verstappen stuck with 'draggy' rear wing for Vegas

Red Bull fears that its prospects for this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix - which…

5 hours ago

Ferrari and Mercedes admit to plank changes based on FIA’s TD

Ferrari and Mercedes have both modified their car’s floor element in Las Vegas to comply…

5 hours ago