“Red Bull will be strong again”– Toto Wolff is not confident about Mercedes racing Red Bull in Baku amidst the championship battle.
Mercedes and Red Bull are separated by a marginal difference in the championship table, with the latter having the lead. Toto Wolff thinks that this difference will certainly be expanded in Baku.
According to Wolff, the circuit in Baku will not be helping them against Red Bull, whose Flexi wings rumoured to give them an advantage. Against which Mercedes is already protesting.
“Weekends like Monaco are the ones that keep you are coming back for more,” Wolff said in Mercedes’ Baku preview. “Nothing comes easy in this sport, and that’s why we love it. We know that if you are not at, or close to, 100%, then it will bite you.
“On Monday morning, I saw the same energy as when we returned from the Bahrain test, and that pleases me. We dissected the weekend, asked hard questions of ourselves, and learned some crucial lessons. I wish we could have been back racing last weekend.
“While it’s a very different street circuit to Monaco, we expect it to be another tricky one for us, not particularly suiting the characteristics and traits of the W12.
Still aiming to bounce back.
Wolff is not absolutely discouraged with the track in Azerbaijan and knows he has a good car, which can beat the rest, considering he has a driver like Lewis Hamilton.
“Red Bull will be strong again, while both Ferrari and McLaren have made great progress recently. A key focus for us has to be exploiting the opportunities available to us on those outlier tracks which aren’t suited to our car – when the points are there, and we need to grab them.
“There will be swings back and forth in this fight which is exciting for the sport and exciting for us. We’re expecting another challenge on the city streets and after the results of the last race, we’re more determined and fired-up than ever to bounce back in Baku.”