Toto Wolff has made no secret of the Mercedes boss’ desire for Max Verstappen to replace Lewis Hamilton in 2025 and the Red Bull ace appreciates his public pursuit.
The Silver Arrows are still on the hunt for their next star driver after Hamilton announced his departure from Mercedes. A chance to replace Carlos Sainz at Ferrari next year tempted the 39-year-old to break out of his contract and leave Brackley at the end of the 2024 season.
Ferrari could not pass on the opportunity to sign Hamilton with Sainz already out of contract after 2024. The move also breaks up the most successful driver-team pairing in Formula 1 to date. Hamilton has won six of his seven titles, plus 82 of his record 103 wins, with Mercedes.
Max Verstappen appreciates Mercedes boss Toto Wolff’s public interest
Team principal Wolff has not hidden from the fact that Mercedes have made Red Bull driver Verstappen their top target to replace Hamilton. The 26-year-old has won the past three F1 drivers’ championships. Verstappen also now ranks third all-time for Grand Prix wins on 56.
Only Hamilton and Michael Schumacher (91) have won more Grand Prix than Verstappen to date. Yet, despite Red Bull dominating F1, GP Blog now reports that Verstappen appreciates Mercedes chief Wolff publicly pursuing him. But the pair have not held any official talks yet.
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Verstappen finds Wolff’s desire to welcome him with open arms appealing as that warmth is not felt at Red Bull. Christian Horner has suggested that ‘nobody is bigger than the team’ in Milton Keynes. So, Verstappen likes Wolff wanting to break him from his contract until 2028.
What Toto Wolff has said about the Red Bull driver replacing Lewis Hamilton
Wolff also revealed to Fox Sports at the Australian GP that Verstappen is Mercedes’ ‘number one’ target to replace Hamilton in 2025. He also admitted that the Dutchman driving for the Silver Arrows is a partnership that ‘needs to happen’, having failed to sign him whilst in F3.
“I’d seen him in Formula 3; he was very good,” Wolff said, via quotes by Autosport. “I have a good relationship with his father. So, we sat down in my home in Vienna and said, ‘What can we do?’. I wasn’t able to give him a Formula 1 seat.
READ MORE: Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton’s life outside of F1 from net worth to family
“I said, ‘Let’s do F2 together, fully funded and I guarantee you a seat next year in the car’. They said, ‘I have an offer from Red Bull for [Toro Rosso] basically from now on’.
“That was it. I knew that we wouldn’t be able to compete with that… So, it’s a kind of a relationship that needs to happen at a certain stage. But we don’t know when.”
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