Red Bull and Max Verstappen just delivered a masterclass on the streets of Marina Bay, taking back-to-back F1 wins after beating Mercedes in a straight fight once again. Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff is openly wary of the growing danger, conceding that next season's battle is shaping up to be an absolute war.
Verstappen put together a near-perfect weekend at the Singapore Grand Prix, claiming a double pole along with victory in Saturday's Sprint and Sunday's Grand Prix. That dominance follows his win a week earlier at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, proving that Red Bull has unlocked substantial performance gains in recent races.
Was it an easy car today like the previous one? I don't think it was. Does it have the performance that we were hoping the upgrade would bring? I don't think so yet,
"You need to take your hat off for what Red Bull has done this season, how they have developed the car and how it's all come together as a package," Wolff told media post-race in Singapore. "And then you put Max Verstappen in the car, and when he feels that this thing is driving like he wants it to drive, then these are the results. He's been by far the quickest guy today, he's been the quickest guy in Kuala Lumpur."
Despite Mercedes standing firmly on the cusp of both the drivers' and teams' titles, the Silver Arrows are scrambling to understand their own development path. A major upgrade introduced for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia proved inconclusive, forcing the team into the highly unusual move of running back-to-back comparisons at Marina Bay. Kimi Antonelli raced the new specification, while George Russell drove the previous version with which he won in Baku.
The split-spec gamble yielded mixed results on track. Antonelli managed to finish third at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, while Russell salvaged P9 after starting from the back of the grid due to power unit component changes. Wolff remained cautious about the true potential of the newest upgrades.
"When we entered the weekend, we made the highly unusual, or let's say the unusual move in a cutting-edge technology business, to have two different cars because we felt we [needed] to accelerate our learning curve, and that was good," Wolff explained. "But fundamentally, looking back at the race now – the end of the weekend – I think that this new car needs a very different set-up philosophy than the previous car. And this is what we're learning at the moment."
Whether the package delivers the expected performance remains to be seen, but the urgency inside the garage is palpable. "Was it an easy car today like the previous one? I don't think it was. Does it have the performance that we were hoping the upgrade would bring? I don't think so yet," Wolff said. "But it was a step in the right direction. And in Austin we shall see whether we can continue to consolidate that and whether, in effect, it has more performance because it's crucial for the development direction for next year."
