Wolf, F1 constructor

While the German manufacturer was buoyed by Lewis Hamilton taking the runner-up spot in the China sprint last weekend, it still endured a challenging Sunday race as it came home behind McLaren and Ferrari again.But with no notable uptrend in its form despite the efforts it has made to better understand its W15, Wolff thinks that it has to lift its game rather than think that glimmers of hope are ...

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Amid fresh comments from Mercedes chief Wolff about the ongoing possibility of Verstappen walking away from Red Bull and potentially to his team, Horner has issued a hard-hitting response.With every indication to Red Bull from the Verstappen camp that the triple world champion is fully committed to his contract, Horner says Wolff is wasting his time dreaming that there is a chance of getting ...

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Hamilton's bombshell move to Maranello was announced on 1 February, and the Briton has since been focusing on his 12th and final F1 season at Mercedes, with team principal Toto Wolff stating after the Australian Grand Prix that what was happening this year at Ferrari was "not his main priority today", referring to his driver.Yet, there will come a time when Hamilton and Mercedes will need to ...

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Lewis Hamilton's decision to join Ferrari for next year means that Mercedes is on the hunt for a new team-mate for George Russell.And there are two different paths that the team can go down: hunting out the most experienced driver it can to help its push to the front, or throwing everything behind its rising junior star Andrea Kimi Antonelli to get him up to speed.On the experienced front, the ...

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Max Verstappen’s dominant performance at the Japanese Grand Prix, as he took his third win from four races this year, left few in any doubt that the Dutchman is the clear favourite to grab his fourth world title this season.And while closest challenger Ferrari hopes it can find gains to start putting Red Bull under more pressure for wins, Wolff thinks it a pipe dream that anyone can stop ...

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At the restart after the first-lap red flag caused by the crash between Alex Albon and Daniel Ricciardo, Mercedes swapped George Russell and Lewis Hamilton from medium tyres to the hard compound in a strategy switch that targeted a one-stop plan.But both drivers struggled for pace on the hards and, after failing to find sufficient gains after their first stop to another set of hard tyres, Russell ...

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As part of an effort to better manage his time amid F1’s calendar expansion, Wolff had planned to miss some of the flyaways – and Japan was one of those where he had originally intended to remain back at base.But off the back of a troubled start to the 2024 campaign for his squad, which included a double DNF in the Australian GP, Wolff changed his plans at the last minute and elected to commit ...

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Masi came under fire for the way he handled the closing stages of the 2021 season finale, where he ended the safety car period just in time to enable a final-lap showdown between title rivals Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.It allowed Red Bull driver Verstappen, who was on fresher tyres, to make a last-gasp pass on Mercedes rival Hamilton for the lead and with it clinch his maiden drivers' ...

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Ferrari appears to have eliminated the poor pitstops and questionable strategy calls that have dogged recent seasons. Combined with a seemingly successful focus on improving race pace for 2024, the Scuderia has run Red Bull closest before scoring a 1-2 in the Australian Grand Prix.Meanwhile, Mercedes is entering its third year of ground-effect struggle. The W15 has so far proved inconsistent, like ...

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Having qualified second in Melbourne, Carlos Sainz - back from surgery for appendicitis that ruled him out of the Saudi Arabian GP - executed a lap-two pass on polesitter Max Verstappen.With the Red Bull forced to retire with a right-rear brake failure, Charles Leclerc followed Sainz home for a Ferrari 1-2 - the first non-Verstappen win since Sainz claimed last year's Singapore victory.That marked ...

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When news broke of Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes to join Ferrari for 2025, Verstappen seemed on course to see out his Red Bull contract, which expires at the end of 2028.However, the ongoing controversy surrounding Christian Horner led Verstappen’s father Jos to claim Red Bull would be "torn apart” if the team principal remained in place.As speculation grew over the position of Red ...

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The 2022 challenger was plagued by porpoising and bouncing while its W14 successor drew complaints from drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell over rear-end handling instability.That prompted Mercedes to change concept for 2024, fully abandoning a size-zero sidepod architecture in the hope of developing a platform that was more predictable and consistent.But the new W15 has also proved ...

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The Silver Arrows camp endured a torrid outing in last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. The W15 suffered handling instability, Lewis Hamilton failed to progress into Q3 before retiring with an engine failure and George Russell crashed heavily two laps from the flag.While the car showed competitive pace on occasion in Melbourne, it was inconsistent - despite the switch away from the size-zero ...

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Lewis Hamilton parked up with a power unit failure, the cause of which is yet to be determined, on lap 15 of a race won by Carlos Sainz after Max Verstappen retired with an early brake fire.Meanwhile, George Russell wiped out two laps from the flag - believing his car to be unsettled by Fernando Alonso immediately ahead. The Spaniard was eventually penalised by 20 seconds for changing his driving ...

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The Silver Arrows camp arrived in Melbourne optimistic about taking a “huge step forward”, with Lewis Hamilton defending the W15 as an “amazing car” and not being an “evil sister”.This followed driver complaints that the team was falling back in the opening races of the new year, with Mercedes starting strongly in free practice only to regress in qualifying and the race.But Mercedes ...

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Susie Wolff announced this week that she had lodged a criminal complaint against motor racing’s governing body in the French courts over unfounded allegations made against her last December.This relates to the FIA issuing a statement that it was looking into claims that Wolff, in her role as F1 Academy managing director, had passed on confidential information to her husband – something that ...

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F1 Academy managing director Wolff revealed ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix that she has personally filed a criminal complaint in the French courts against the FIA.In December, the FIA started looking into a potential conflict of interest between Wolff and her husband Toto - the Mercedes motorsport boss - supposedly after F1 team bosses complained that confidential information had ...

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The F1 Driver Academy managing director, who is wife of Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, found herself at the centre of a media storm in December after the FIA announced it was looking into a potential conflict of interest between them.This followed a media report suggesting that confidential information had been shared between the pair, and that teams had complained to the FIA. Both these counts ...

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Red Bull’s current advantage with its RB20 has opened up the prospect of it already looking certain to win the world championships this year, and potentially lock out every race victory.Off the back of a similarly dominant 2023 campaign, this has prompted fears that the popularity of F1 could suffer if a closer battle at the front of the field doesn't soon develop.While the inability of Red ...

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The German manufacturer has had a challenging start to the 2024 season, with last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix exposing a particular weakness that its new W15 has in high-speed corners.While the squad does not have answers right now as to what is causing the unexplained problem, Wolff has declared that he has total faith in the team getting on top of matters.And, although there is ...

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While Verstappen has signed a contract at Red Bull that carries him through until 2028, the recent internal turmoil at the Milton Keynes-based squad has opened up the prospect of him potentially walking away.Those chances increased over the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend when, after it emerged there was a possibility that Verstappen ally Helmut Marko could be forced out, the Dutch driver ...

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Marko’s future as Red Bull’s motorsport advisor has been thrown into doubt after it emerged in Saudi Arabia that he could face imminent suspension.It comes amid an investigation by the Red Bull energy drinks company into suspicions that Marko may have been involved in the leaking of confidential information to journalists regarding the allegations surrounding team principal Christian ...

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F1’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix weekend was overshadowed by the situation involving Horner, who was investigated by Red Bull’s energy drinks company in the wake of allegations made against him by a female employee.Following an eight-week investigation by an independent lawyer, the complaints were dismissed and Horner was cleared of wrongdoing.But that has not proved to be the end of the ...

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George Russell led the Silver Arrows charge with fifth place in Bahrain as team-mate Lewis Hamilton finished the season-opener in seventh, the pair having started third and ninth respectively.Russell had climbed as high as second with an outside pass on Charles Leclerc on lap four to sit just 1.7s behind eventual dominant Red Bull winner Max Verstappen.But his impressive start was undone by having ...

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McLaren boss Zak Brown has been vocal in his desire to see F1 revise the rules surrounding customer car parts and team alliances from 2026, amid unease he has about the relationship between Red Bull and RB.Brown believes F1’s current regulations are “not fit for purpose” as they offer too much of an advantage for teams that are able to work together, and he wants a complete overhaul of ...

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