Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff insists that even the great Niki Lauda would have “taken his hat off” Red Bull’s quick repair job on Max Verstappen’s car in the minutes leading up to the Hungarian Grand Prix.
When Verstappen crashed into the tire barrier 20 minutes before the start of the Grand Prix on the training lap, Red Bull feared that his career had ended before it started.
However, the mechanics managed to repair the suspension damage with literal seconds to spare, allowing Verstappen to secure an unlikely P2, splitting the Mercedes cars.
After the race on the work done by Mercedes’ rivals, he told Sky Sport F1: “Niki would have taken off her hat.”
“When it ended up on the wall, it didn’t seem like the car was participating in the race. The guys in the car really did a tremendous job.”
Mercedes has won each of the first three races of the 2020 season; Valtteri Bottas with one and Lewis Hamilton adding their second on Sunday at the Hungaroring, but Wolff is wary of the threat Red Bull, and Verstappen especially, pose to their teams’ title bid.
Adding that he doesn’t feel the RB16 is ‘a bad car’, he said: “[It’s] It is certainly not always at the optimum point, but the car seemed to be fine today and you can see, when they are there, they are a worthy competitor and enemy.
“When you look at the points, we have three wins in three races, but there is a 30 point gap. That is nothing. That is a DNF, and he wins one and the whole gap is gone.”
“We just need to keep pushing.”
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