May 22 (GMM) Toto Wolff says he has no interest patching up a dispute with the CEO of Mercedes’ direct Formula 1 rival Red Bull.
It is believed that part of team boss Wolff’s delay in deciding who will replace Lewis Hamilton next year is because he’s hoping Max Verstappen joins Adrian Newey in deciding to prematurely quit Red Bull.
Wolff is reportedly hoping not only that Verstappen will tire of the team’s power struggle, but that the triple world champion may suspect that Mercedes will do a better job than Red Bull in preparing an all-new engine for 2026.
But Christian Horner, the scandal-struck Red Bull team boss, said at Imola that more than 200 members of Mercedes’ F1 engine subsidiary have actually defected to Red Bull Powertrains.
“He needs to work on mathematics,” Wolff is quoted as responding. “It was 19 engineers.
“I’m looking forward to the 2026 season to see the difference in performance between the different power units.”
Amid Wolff’s efforts to perhaps unsettle Red Bull, he had also lashed back at new Red Bull GmbH co-CEO Oliver Mintzlaff earlier in May. Mintzlaff had said Wolff’s public efforts to woo Verstappen were “inappropriate”.
“What he says has no relevance to me,” Wolff said at the time. “Maybe he just wants to be on TV.”
And now, Wolff has continued to aim fire at Mintzlaff, insisting he has no intention of trying to patch up relations between himself and Red Bull.
“I am not sure whether Mintzlaff is fulfilling what Dietrich Mateschitz expected of him in terms of his legacy,” Wolff told Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper.
When asked if he will seek talks with the Red Bull CEO to clear the air, Wolff added: “I’m not interested in that at all.”