After retiring with a brake issue barely three laps into the Australian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen claimed victory from pole position in Japan, remaining unchallenged throughout the race to finish 12 seconds ahead of his Red Bull teammate.
Ferrari have established themselves as second-best, with McLaren emerging as the third force behind the front-runners.
It’s trickier to gauge where Mercedes currently stands. After a promising Friday and encouraging comments from Lewis Hamilton about the drivability of the car, the team struggled on Sunday, failing to make gains and only managing a seventh and ninth at the flag.
Speaking after the race, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff bluntly stated: “No one is going to catch Max this year.
“His driving and the car are just spectacular. You can see the way he manages the tyres and basically this season now is best of the rest.
“That’s the fact, that is all, but hopefully we can catch up to the McLarens and to the Ferraris and fight for P2. This is what it is this year and what it was last year and we had a P2 last year.”
Though victories are unlikely to materialise given Mercedes’s form so far this season—good enough to progress to Q3 and stay in the top ten in the races, but not strong enough to challenge for podium positions—Wolff emphasised the importance of setting ambitious goals.
“We’re in a bit of a… If your expectation is eventually to race for wins and championships, then you can say we’re in a bit of a no man’s land.
“Because Max and Red Bull are far ahead and then we’re in this bunch, but it’s not satisfying for neither team that is fighting for P2 and P3 or P4. And then there’s some of the smaller teams.
“I’ve always said it, that if I was to look from a pure sporting point of view it is P1 which matters, not P2, P3 or P4, but this is the reality that we are facing at the moment. We’re trying to do the best out of this new reality and that is to beat our competitors whilst acknowledging that somebody is just doing a better job and setting the benchmark that we eventually need to set ourselves again.
“Whether we’re able to, with our ambition to win races this year—and I wouldn’t want to let that ambition go, certainly not next year [either].”
Wolff acknowledged that Red Bull likely won’t be dethroned before the new regulation changes come into effect in 2026. Until then, Mercedes will focus on making steady progress to improve their standing as much as possible under the current circumstances.
“But ’26 there is a big reset which certainly provides the most realistic opportunity for any other team to beat Red Bull,” he said.
“But there is one-and three-quarter seasons before that and I don’t want to go through much more suffering in the next 18 months. I would just hope for highlights and a trajectory that is going upward.”
With Verstappen and Red Bull tipped to dominate the season yet again, the Mercedes team boss was asked about strategies for keeping fans entertained and engaged.
“I think I wouldn’t say it like this. Because the guys who are ahead are the deserving winner,” he said.
Wolff added that Ferrari being in the mix can provide an element of unpredictability and excitement: “I believe that we’ve seen the Ferraris more closer to [Verstappen] in some of the previous races.
“And I think we can be closer to the Ferraris than we have shown today. So it is still exciting.
“I don’t know how the race was for you guys to watch. I’m just looking at our cars in split time. So I never have a correct picture of what’s actually happening out there.
“But I believe it’s pretty close between P3 or P2 at times and P8. In that respect there will be some action. We just have to push ourselves to provide a better show and eventually challenge them.”
