Wolff about Vettel at Mercedes: "Would be a good marketing story"
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Toto Wolff has indicated that Sebastian Vettel is still a very good Formula 1 driver and even states that a possible arrival of the 32-year-old driver at marketing would be good for the Mercedes brand. Furthermore, Wolff indicates that he does not understand that all teams in the royal class of motor racing have chosen to announce transfers before the season has even started.
"Of course, a German driver in a German car is a good marketing story," says Wolff in conversation with ORF. Just like last week, the team boss of Mercedes is praising Vettel. "We are exclusively focused on success. Sebastian is of course someone who is really good. He pulls all the strings. He can decide for himself whether he wants to quit or join another team. There are still some interesting places to go."
Mercedes doesn't understand rivals
With the announcements of Carlos Sainz at Ferrari and Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren it was a busy week in terms of position changes. These teams have chosen to go for quick clarity, but Wolff doubts that strategy. "At least we are not going to put ourselves in that position. It's a bit difficult to manage if you have a driver next season, while next year he will be in a rival team", said the Austrian.
Especially when it comes to innovation, that's a tricky thing. "You know that your driver can use that against you next year," Wolff continues. "That's why all the race stables that announced this in a hurry are in a difficult situation that we don't want to get into".
Announcements Mercedes not expected soon
At Mercedes there are in principle two vacancies to be filled before 2021, as the contracts of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas both expire after next year. The German race stable has yet to decide where it wants to go for the coming years. "We're looking at what we're going to do with George Russell and then there's a Vettel turn. But this is not on the highest place on the agenda at the moment, we want to concentrate on our own team first", Wolff concludes.