Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Max Verstappen’s win in the Italian Grand Prix that gave him a record 10th straight victory wouldn’t be important to him as “it’s for Wikipedia and nobody reads that anyway.”
Verstappen remains unbeaten since Sergio Perez won in Baku in April, setting a new benchmark in Formula 1 and eclipsing Sebastian Vettel’s previous record of nine straight wins. After overtaking Carlos Sainz to win at Monza, Verstappen said he was proud of the achievement but Wolff claims a Mercedes driver didn’t manage to achieve such a feat due to the way wins were shared between teammates.
“Our situation was maybe a little bit different because we had two drivers fighting against each other within the team,” Wolff told Sky Sports. “I don’t know whether he cares about the record. It’s not something that would be important for me, any of those numbers. It’s for Wikipedia and nobody reads that anyway.”
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Expanding on the topic a little later, Wolff states his view is based on how he personally viewed such records rather than whether it’s an impressive achievement or not.
“We just talked about it. For me, these types of records are completely irrelevant. They were irrelevant in our good days in Mercedes. I don’t know how many races we won in a row and I didn’t even know that there was a count for how many races in a row you win. Therefore, asking me on commenting on some achievement is difficult because it never played a role in my whole life. The result itself shows that a great driver in a great car are competing on an extremely high level.”
The Mercedes team principal says he would be more impressed if Red Bull was to win every race this season, something that has never been achieved in Formula 1 if the 1950s Indianapolis 500 results are taken into account.
“I think they need to screw it up themselves. They are on track to win every race this season and that, by the way, is a record that I would think is a good one, because that is perfection. We didn’t make it (in 2016) because our two drivers pushed each other out in Barcelona and then we had an engine failure in Malaysia.”