Mercedes will not involve itself in Sunday\u2019s title fight in Abu Dhabi, with Toto Wolff adamant it is \u201ca three-way fight\u201d, even if two of those cars are powered by Mercedes engines.<\/p>\n
Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri ahead into Sunday\u2019s title-decider at the Abu Dhabi circuit, separated by three points with a host of permutations depending on how the fight goes.<\/p>\n
Toto Wolff: \u2018May the best man win\u2019<\/p>\n
Although the odds are in Norris\u2019 favour as he leads Verstappen by 12 points with Piastri a further four off the pace, any of the three could yet win it.<\/p>\n
Rival teams could also play a big role, as Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko pointed out after Qatar.<\/p>\n
That Sunday Verstappen claimed the win, his fifth in eight grands prix, ahead of Piastri and Carlos Sainz while Kimi Antonelli almost kept Norris at bay before a mistake at the start of the opening lap opened the door for the championship leader to attack and overtake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope Mercedes<\/a> is competitive,\u201d he told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media.<\/p>\n \u201cFerrari, maybe, in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more cars that are in between, the better for us.\u201d<\/p>\n It had Mercedes 2016 World Champion Rosberg pondering whether Mercedes would rather McLaren win the titles, given the Woking team\u2019s cars are powered by Mercedes engines.<\/p>\n He put that question to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff on Saturday where Russell put paid to a Norris hat-trick in the practice sessions.<\/p>\n The Sky F1 guest pundit said: \u201cWith George maybe playing a role in the championship right up front there, does it matter to you that McLaren is running Mercedes engines? <\/p>\n \u201cLike, is that part of the consideration at all when it comes to it, or you just literally do not care? Red Bull or McLaren?\u201d<\/p>\n Wolff made his thoughts crystal clear.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, we have to keep out of this,\u201d he insisted. \u201cThis is a three-way fight between three drivers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Constructors\u2019 Championship is won by McLaren with our power unit. May the best man win.\u201d<\/p>\n More on the F1 2025 title race<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc49\u00a0How Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri can seal the F1 2025 title<\/a><\/p>\n \ud83d\udc49\u00a0The updated Drivers\u2019 and Constructors\u2019 Championship standings<\/a><\/p>\n Wolff condemns \u2018sad\u2019 online abuse<\/p>\n The Austrian also weighed in on recent accusations against Mercedes driver Antonelli in the title fight when he was accused by Red Bull, who were quick to apologise, of letting Norris through in Qatar.<\/p>\n The teenager received online abuse and even death threats after Verstappen\u2019s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase said over team radio.: \u201cIt looked like he just pulled over and let Lando through.\u201d<\/p>\n Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko later told reporters it was \u201cso obvious\u201d that Norris was \u201cwaved\u201d through by Antonelli.<\/p>\n Red Bull later issued a statement clarifying that suggestions Antonelli had \u201cdeliberately allowed Lando Norris to overtake him are clearly incorrect\u201d, that didn\u2019t stop the torrent of abuse.<\/p>\n Asked about that, Wolff said: \u201cWell, first of all, I\u2019m thankful because Oliver [Mintzlaff], who runs Red Bull and GP and Laurent, have reached out and have apologised, which I think just shows, you know, the class of our competitors also.<\/p>\n \u201cTo the ones that sit behind their keyboard, you know, they are just sick.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sad for them. You know, like I said many years ago, you\u2019re having a laptop on your chest. God knows what you have done just before. You\u2019ve written that little note. <\/p>\n \u201cSo I have no respect for anyone\u2026 go and screw you.\u201d<\/p>\n Read next: Who did foot the end-of-season dinner tab as Hamilton \u2018ordered everything\u2019?<\/a><\/p>\n Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.
You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1, and much more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes will not involve itself in Sunday\u2019s title fight in Abu Dhabi, with Toto Wolff adamant it is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[94915,64,63,817,813,816,818,945,44,17165,85,4703],"class_list":{"0":"post-332351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-abu-dhabi-grand-prix","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-mercedes","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-popular","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-toto-wolff"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332351","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=332351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}