{"id":776497,"date":"2026-07-03T13:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776497\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T13:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:07:13","slug":"f1-fans-poke-fun-at-max-verstappen-mercedes-rumours-after-toto-wolff-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776497\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 fans poke fun at Max Verstappen Mercedes rumours after Toto Wolff moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 fans have poked fun at the persistent rumours linking Max Verstappen<\/a> to Mercedes<\/a> following a post-race exchange with Toto Wolff at the Austrian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Despite the Mercedes chief confirming that the Brackley outfit does not want to change its driver line-up for 2027, the moment Wolff congratulated the four-time champion on his second-place finish at the Red Bull Ring sparked satirical reactions across social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Time to overreact,” one fan commented on Reddit, while another responded, joking: “MAX VERSTAPPEN REPLACES KIMI ANTONELLI AT MERCEDES.”<\/p>\n

Someone else added: “MAX VERSTAPPEN TO REPLACE TOTO WOLFF AT MERCEDES. MAX VERSTAPPEN TO REPLACE BENZ AT MERCEDES-VERSTAPPEN FORMULA 1 TEAM.”<\/p>\n

“He’s telling Max that he has the contract printed out,” another fan wrote, referring to the viral Drive to Survive moment between Wolff and former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.<\/p>\n

Further comments included: “Handshake to confirm the contract. Clear as day. I know a contract handshake when I see one and this is one of those,” and “This has to mean that Max becomes team principal at Merc surely.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Verstappen’s second place at the Austrian Grand\u00a0Prix marked his best result of the 2026 to date. He joined race winner George Russell<\/a> and current\u00a0championship leader Kimi Antonelli on the podium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Toto must be happy to see two- er, three of his sons on the podium,” another comment read.<\/p>\n

“At this point, the whole grid are his sons.\u00a0Kimi, Russell, Ham, Bottas, Max, etc.,” another fan responded.<\/p>\n

Mercedes has enjoyed a strong start to 2026, winning every grand prix so far apart from the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, which marked Lewis Hamilton’s first grand prix victory with Ferrari<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Wolff-led team leads the constructors’ championship with 302 points, followed by Ferrari in second with 204 points and McLaren<\/a> in third with 159 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 fans have poked fun at the persistent rumours linking Max Verstappen to Mercedes following a post-race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,39495,817,362331,368260,813,816,825,945,85,1511],"class_list":["post-776497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-austrian-gp","tag-f1","tag-f1-austrian-grand-prix","tag-f1-fans-poke-fun-at-max-verstappen-mercedes-rumours-after-toto-wolff-moment","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mercedes","tag-sports","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776497","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=776497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}