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“Will Ruin the Sport”: Toto Wolff Subtly Insults Red Bull for Past Crimes Despite Siding With Max Verstappen & Co. Over Major Change

Published 05/29/2023, 1:15 PM EDT

In an ideal world, Red Bull would’ve been basking in the glory of their dominant run in the sport. To some extent, it’s safe to safe that they are, too. However, a dark cloud in the shape of their cost cap breach reprimand hangs over all their accolades. When the news had initially come out, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff made a huge hue and cry about it. Almost a year since the Austrian has not changed his stance.

The Milton-Keynes-based outfit has nailed the RB19. As a consequence, nobody is fast enough to catch them. Naturally, many have written the 2023 season off. In light of this frustrating reality, ideas are being pushed to introduce regulations that balance out the performance of cars.

Toto Wolff gives his verdict on Red Bull’s supremacy

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Mercedes are a country mile behind the Bulls currently. Even with their revised W14 upgrades at Monaco, the team are still quite some way off a championship bid. You’d imagine Wolff to be in favor of a rule change that will bring them closer to Max Verstappen & Co. But he thinks otherwise.

When quizzed about such a measure to be adopted, Wolff responded, “If we start balancing performance, we will ruin this sport,” as quoted by Motorsport Week. He then went on to explain his stance, and along the way took a subtle dig at Red Bull’s past misdemeanors.

“This is a class of its own, the best driver in the best car, spending the same amount of money (as the other teams, ed.), and winning the championship. If you break the rules, you must be severely punished. Only then, but not for doing a good job.” [translated via Google Translate]

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Wolff seems happy where he and his team are right now. But he does have his eyes firmly set on catching them up eventually.

Wolff sets timeline to catch Max Verstappen and Co.

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Mercedes will be eagerly awaiting an opportunity to get back to their glory days and dominant ways. But the Austrian team principal is wary of the constraints of this sport, development wise. Hence, he has set himself a cautious deadline to get back to the top again.

According to Crash.net, Wolff said, “I think the length [of time before catching Red Bull] is probably between six and 12 months. That’s the time that it really took for us [last year] to figure out what was actually happening with the car.”

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Written by:

Anirban Aly Mandal is a senior F1 writer at EssentiallySports, with over 500 articles published on the platform. Anirban's love for F1 started when he discovered a copy of F1 2014 while playing on his computer, and he has since then dived deep into the world of motorsports. Anirban's expertise goes beyond just writing - he has also written several academic papers focused on the domain of motorsports.

Edited by:

Varunkumaar Chelladurai

“Will Ruin the Sport”: Toto Wolff Subtly Insults Red Bull for Past Crimes Despite Siding With Max Verstappen & Co. Over Major Change

Toto Wolff gives his verdict on Red Bull’s supremacy

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Wolff sets timeline to catch Max Verstappen and Co.