Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes Max Verstappen being the \u201cunderdog\u201d in this year\u2019s F1 title race gives him a \u201cpsychological advantage\u201d over McLaren.<\/p>\n
Verstappen stormed to his third win in four races to move within 40 points of Oscar Piastri<\/a> at the top of the F1<\/a> drivers\u2019 championship.<\/p>\n Since Monza, Verstappen has reduced Piastri\u2019s lead by over 60 points, moving into unlikely title contention.<\/p>\n The title race remains in Piastri\u2019s hands, as he can afford to finish second to Verstappen in every remaining race and still be champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, the momentum is clearly with Verstappen amid Red Bull\u2019s late resurgence.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Giving his perspective on the championship battle, Wolff said: \u201cI\u2019ve been in a similar situation with two drivers fighting for a championship, and the threat of another one catching back in the day was Max, I believe, and then it was Sebastian [Vettel] in that hunt.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the underdog always has a little bit of an easier psychological advantage because of the probability.<\/p>\n \u201cThe odds are definitely against Max. If you look at the probability that\u2019s very low, one DNS can change everything, and I think that affects the driving also.<\/p>\n \u201cHow aggressive can you actually go for an overtake? You can see with Lando today, he\u2019s done it at the end but it was tricky at times to decide whether you keep your nose, put your nose in, or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen \u201cas good as he gets as a driver\u201d<\/p>\n A fifth F1 title for Verstappen would be one of the sport\u2019s greatest triumphs.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n The Red Bull driver finished a distant ninth at the Hungarian Grand Prix back in July.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since then, Red Bull have transformed the RB21 with a series of upgrades.<\/p>\n Verstappen continues to perform at the peak of his powers, delivering excellent performances at every race weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wolff praised Verstappen for his run of form, stating: \u201che\u2019s as good as he gets as a driver\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think Max is great but I wouldn\u2019t be able to say whether any other driver [could],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve just turned the car out, and that guy is the most competitive at the moment, and he\u2019s scoring the big points.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s as good as he gets as a driver.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes Max Verstappen being the \u201cunderdog\u201d in this year\u2019s F1 title race gives him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,825,85,4703],"class_list":["post-229977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229977","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=229977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}