Toto Wolff sees it coming. Not inevitability, but momentum. And in a title fight that’s felt like McLaren’s to lose, he thinks the man giving chase has the cleanest head of the lot.
With Max Verstappen now 40 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri after Austin, the Mercedes boss framed the Red Bull driver as the hunter with a psychological tailwind. The logic is familiar from a paddock lifer: when you’re not expected to win, you can drive with a different kind of freedom.
Wolff has lived through the third-car threat in a two-horse race before, and he drew on those scars when asked how Verstappen’s late-season charge stacks up against the McLaren duo. The odds still sit against Red Bull; probabilities aren’t kind to the chaser at this stage. But probabilities don’t brake into Turn 1.
“One non-finish can flip the picture,” was the gist of Wolff’s view in Texas. That’s the calculation that gnaws at leaders. How much risk do you take when the points cushion can vanish with a single mechanical cough or a misjudged squeeze? At Austin you could see the dilemma in micro with Lando Norris — push for the move, or protect the scoreboard? He ultimately made it stick, but not without edges showing.
That’s where Verstappen operates comfortably. He’s not the one managing a slim lead; he’s the one leaning into it, the driver Wolff called “as good as it gets.” Strip away the tribal noise, and that’s hard to argue with. Red Bull has found something in recent rounds, and when the RB is in the window Verstappen converts at a rate that suffocates rivals. Grid penalties, awkward starting positions, strange tyre degs — he tends to reduce the variables.
Of course, McLaren’s armour isn’t soft. Piastri’s been granite under pressure this year, and Norris has added a street-fighter streak to his Sunday craft that he didn’t always show in his earlier seasons. There’s also the small matter of two orange cars to one constant Red Bull, which matters when the calendar starts to run out. Team play, pit windows, awkward undercuts — that’s how you blunt a chaser’s rhythm.
Still, there’s an energy to this fight that wasn’t there before Red Bull’s resurgence. Earlier in the year the Verstappen “what if” felt theoretical. Now it’s lived-in. He’s chiselled the deficit down to a number you can see on a whiteboard. That’s when pressure creeps under the garage door and starts rearranging strategies.
Wolff’s perspective is interesting for another reason: his own shop has just cleared a lingering question. Austin was the first race after Mercedes confirmed its driver line-up for next season, and the team principal sounded genuinely relieved to have that storyline boxed off. No more hedging, no more swirl, no more daily “what about next year?” diversions in the hospitality unit. Drivers can stop reading tea leaves; engineers can go back to lap time.
That doesn’t put Mercedes in this title scene, but it does underline how clean air matters — in the media room as much as on the pit straight. McLaren’s got a title to land with two drivers who both believe, and that can be gloriously effective or occasionally complicated. Red Bull’s got one blunt instrument, finally sharp again. Choose your narrative.
The caution note from Wolff remains: the table still favours Piastri, with Norris standing guard. But the team boss who’s seen championships won by margins you can measure in a single botched pit stop wasn’t shy about the danger Verstappen presents when he’s not defending, but attacking.
The next few Sundays will turn on tiny choices — an undercut that comes a lap early, a Safety Car gamble, a squeeze that earns a black-and-white flag you didn’t need. That’s where the “hunter’s advantage” lives. It’s not a guarantee. It’s the absence of fear.
And Verstappen, in this mood, has a habit of making the rest of the grid feel it.
