Toto Wolff calls Verstappen courtship a ‘mistake’ and draws a line under Mercedes’ summer saga
Toto Wolff has finally put a lid on the most distracting subplot of F1’s silly season, conceding that Mercedes’ summer-long orbit around Max Verstappen was, in his own words, “a mistake” — or at least a lesson he won’t be keen to repeat.
The Mercedes boss was open all year about checking in on Verstappen’s intentions amid Red Bull’s wobble in form, and just as open about his own policy of transparency. But when Verstappen was spotted on Wolff’s yacht off Sardinia, the coincidence detonated into a week of headline-writing chaos. No matter the explanation, it didn’t look good.
“So the truth is, you’ve got to learn from the mistake,” Wolff told Sky F1. “I think there wasn’t any on purpose flirting. It’s just a coincidence. It was clear that you need to have that conversation, and then we ended up in the same place in the summer, which obviously doesn’t look good and is destabilising for everyone. But that’s the past. Now, everything is cleared, contracts are signed, and we move forward.”
Verstappen ultimately re‑affirmed his Red Bull commitment on the eve of the Hungarian Grand Prix, slamming the brakes on paddock chatter just as it was reaching another gear. By that point, George Russell had already hinted that “ongoing” discussions were influencing his own contract talks — the kind of loose thread Mercedes hardly needed as it tried to settle its future.
Wolff’s response was to double down on the drivers he believes will define the team’s next cycle. Russell and Kimi Antonelli have now signed fresh deals ahead of the United States Grand Prix, a clear statement that Mercedes is building around youth and continuity rather than waiting for the market to save them.
“Being open and transparent is the best path forward,” Wolff said during the team principals’ press conference in Austin. “Sometimes it bites you a bit. When you look back, maybe certain events could have been better coincidences that happened. But I’ve always done it in the most straightforward and fair way.”
That openness cut both ways over the summer. Wolff had a duty to understand Verstappen’s outlook — any team principal would take that call — but he also had to show loyalty to his own drivers while the rumor mill spun hardest. The optics, as he admits, were clumsy. The resolution is not.
Internally, Russell’s new deal is understood to be multi-year. The shape of it will raise eyebrows after Mercedes lost Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari via a one‑plus‑one clause — a detail Sky F1’s Martin Brundle didn’t miss when he pressed Wolff on whether history might repeat. Wolff swerved the trap, while also parrying Brundle’s thought experiment about pairing Russell with Verstappen for 2027.
“Certainly good entertainment for everyone,” Wolff smiled. “But we don’t want to create any rumours here. Kimi and George is what we want to do in the future and going forward. It’s a good line-up.”
Antonelli’s agreement, meanwhile, is understood to cover 2026 as the Italian teenager continues his accelerated march into the top tier. If Wolff needed a fresh start after a turbulent summer, a Russell–Antonelli ticket gives him precisely that: a clear message to the garage and the factory about where Mercedes is headed, and fewer distractions about who might be coming through the door.
There’s also a sense of timing at work. Verstappen’s reaffirmation closed one loop. Mercedes finalizing both of its seats before Austin closed another. The championship calendar can be unforgiving to indecision; that Sardinian photo might have sparked a thousand speculative posts, but stability wins titles, and Wolff knows it.
None of this means the what‑ifs will vanish. That’s not how this sport works. If Red Bull’s form dips again or the market buckles in 2026, someone will inevitably revisit the summer of 2025 and wonder who should’ve called whom, and when. But Wolff’s tone this week was less confessional than corrective. Mistakes made, lessons absorbed, and a door quietly shut.
The real test comes now. Mercedes bet on its future, not someone else’s. It’s Russell’s team to lead, Antonelli’s to grow into, and Wolff’s to protect from the next “coincidence.” The silly season will always be silly; Mercedes can’t afford to be.
