Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has shared insight into the conversations he had with Max Verstappen over a potential shock swoop for the four-time champion.<\/p>\n
Verstappen was long linked with a move away from Red Bull at the end of the current campaign, with Mercedes being labelled as a potential destination.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman failed to commit his future to the Milton Keynes-based outfit on numerous occasions amid suggestions that a performance clause existed in his contract.<\/p>\n
Prior to the summer break however, Verstappen finally declared that he would be staying put at Red Bull next year – despite interest from Mercedes.<\/p>\n
Speaking to select media including RacingNews365, Wolff insisted the conditions of a potential deal never favoured both parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was never that one dimension of ‘have we got a shot?’\u201d Wolff stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more ‘does it make sense from the Mercedes perspective?’ and ‘does that make sense from the Verstappen perspective?’<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it never came to the point where you could say, \u2018well, we\u2019ll give it a shot\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tMercedes ‘not afraid’ to field Max Verstappen alongside F1 star<\/p>\n
Mercedes is yet to confirm its driver line-up for next year – however George Russell and Kimi Antonelli are widely expected to stay in place.<\/p>\n
Wolff asserted he had no desire to put strain on his current drivers by talking with Verstappen, insisting he was carrying out his due diligence as a team boss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is my obligation as a team principal here to explore what a four-time world champion is going to do in the future and what his situation is,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny driver out there will say that Max, as it stands, is probably the best. That’s not a secret.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery team needs to go for the best driver. Sometimes you can’t have the best at the moment. Sometimes you need to wait for a time and sometimes you need to develop the best.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me today, what we have is a very good combination. Let’s see what it is in two or three years. It may be different.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never came to the situation where it was like, \u2018okay, we are going to do this\u2019. Not on Max’s side, nor on my side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolff did not rule out the possibility of linking up with Verstappen in the future, and insisted he has no concerns over placing him alongside an already proven F1 star.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult, but these guys have learned to perform under pressure,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorge is the first one to acknowledge \u2018I just need to constantly perform and if I constantly perform that, then the team has no reason to ever doubt my position\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need the two best drivers in the car. I’m not afraid of having the two best in the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve had that situation with Nico [Rosberg] and Lewis [Hamilton], and that is going to continue my plan for the future, whatever the driver combination can be in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has shared insight into the conversations he had with Max Verstappen over a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-142520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}