Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1 ><\/a><\/p>\n Earlier this month, Sky Italy<\/a> reported that \u201cconcrete negotiations\u201d<\/a> between Verstappen and Mercedes had progressed to a point where they were \u201cclose\u201d to agreeing a deal, though the Silver Arrows board was yet to make a decision.<\/p>\n Speculation of Verstappen\u2019s future went into overdrive<\/a> following the recent sacking of long-serving team boss Horner<\/a>, with Laurent Mekies taking charge of Red Bull at this weekend\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n However, speaking to Austrian broadcaster ORF, Wolff \u2014 who had long fanned the flames of a potential switch to Mercedes for Verstappen \u2014 struck a different tune. <\/p>\n Nonetheless, he still notably kept the door slightly ajar to Verstappen joining.<\/p>\n \u201cDiscussions have been taking place over the last weeks and months, so they are all up to date,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe direction of travel is definitely that we want to continue with George and Kimi. That is the absolute priority.<\/p>\n \u201cBut you can\u2019t look past someone like Max and the plans he has for the future. We did that, but I don\u2019t think there will be any big surprises.\u201d<\/p>\n Toto Wolff before the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix. Photo by Jakub Porzycki\/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n Wolff also hit out at fans that manufactured doctored images showing him boarding Verstappen\u2019s private jet. Earlier this month, yachts belonging to the duo were located off the coast of Sardinia, with the Red Bull driver\u2019s private jet also landing on the Italian island.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s new is that people are doing photo collages with aeroplanes. We\u2019ve never had that before,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if you spend your holidays close to each other, it doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re going to work together in Formula 1.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have always gotten along well and by chance we like to spend our holidays at the same places.\u201d<\/p>\n The F1 season resumes this weekend with the Belgian Grand Prix. Australian driver Oscar Piastri leads teammate Lando Norris on the standings by eight points, with Verstappen behind the McLaren duo in third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has identified George Russell and Kimi Antonelli as the team\u2019s \u201cabsolute priority\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[18509,64,63,18503,18502,18246,1199,817,18507,813,816,3738,3875,18510,2105,10115,1737,825,18506,18500,2333,18501,18504,18505,85,13773,18508,18511],"class_list":["post-17351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-absolute-priority","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-driver","tag-austrian-broadcaster","tag-belgian-grand","tag-christian-horner","tag-f1","tag-five-year-deal-worth","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-fox-sports","tag-george-russell","tag-german-team","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lando-norris","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mercedes-team-principal","tag-orf","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-performance-clause","tag-rival-driver","tag-silver-arrows-board","tag-sports","tag-team-principal","tag-title-contention","tag-yachts-belonging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351","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=17351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1752977588_817_poster-fallback.png\"\/)
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