As speculation continues to swirl around George Russell’s future with Mercedes and the team’s potential interest in signing Max Verstappen, Toto Wolff has shed some light on the current state of play ahead of the F1 Austrian GP.
Mercedes have yet to announce their driver line-up for next year. While rising talent Kimi Antonelli is expected to stay on, Russell’s long-term future with the team appears less certain.
For his part, Russell has been one of the standout drivers this season, securing Mercedes’s first victory of 2025 at the F1 Canadian GP.
However, over the past year, Mercedes have been strongly linked with Verstappen. The Dutch driver was reportedly one of the options Wolff considered as a potential replacement in the wake of Lewis Hamilton’s departure at the end of the 2024 season.
Speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the F1 Austrian GP, Russell indicated that Mercedes’ interest in Verstappen hasn’t waned and that “conversations” with the four-time world champion have taken place—but maintained that he personally has no reason for concern, given his strong performances this season.
Russell contract status is “normal”
Wolff addressed the situation directly during Friday’s press conference in Spielberg.
The Mercedes team boss admitted there’s “nothing” more Russell has to do to earn an extension, heaping praise on the Briton.
“He has been part of our program since ten years or so,” Wolff said.
“He’s always performed to the expectations that we have set, and he’s continuing to do so. We haven’t given him a car to win a world championship in the last three years, so that’s completely on us. And the times the car has been good, he has been winning races. And you can see today, he’s always there. You know that when he’s getting in the car, he’s going to extract what is in the car.
“Having said that, for whatever reason, in early summer, those kinds of contract discussions start to end up being accelerated in the media or accelerated because of a lack of information. What I have been doing the last 30 years in a normal business, contract discussions are not being held as town halls. So, everything is normal. Everything goes to plan.”
As for whether Russell remains the team’s top choice for the future, Wolff replied: “Well, he needs to be top of the list because he’s a race winner with us. He’s a Mercedes junior. He’s been with the team for a long time.”
Wolff doesn’t deny suggestions of holding talks with Verstappen’s camp
The Austrian remained tight-lipped when pressed on Russell’s recent comments about the Verstappen talks delaying his contract signing.
“Again, we are going into territory that I don’t want to discuss out here,” Wolff said.
“But people talk, people explore, and most important is that in our organisation, we are transparent. It doesn’t change a millimetre of my opinion of George, his abilities, or anything else.”
Wolff also emphasised that he has no problem with Russell being open about the situation: “I like what George says, and I’m always supportive of the driver. There’s no such thing as saying things I wouldn’t want him to say.”
However, he did not deny that talks with Verstappen or his representatives had taken place.
“I think we are very transparent in the team for what we do, what we plan, and we’ve been like that since I was put in charge,” Wolff continued.
“So that’s not the issue. At the moment, clearly, you need to explore what’s happening in the future, but it doesn’t change anything of what I said before about George or about Kimi, about the line-up that I’m extremely happy to have.”
Reminded of his earlier claim that he doesn’t intend to ‘‘flirt” with the idea of signing Verstappen, Wolff was asked whether anything had changed since then. He responded: “Define ‘flirting’… No. Nothing changed. There is no ‘flirting’ in that sense. You know, you can ‘flirt’, or you have conversations.”
“Every lineup” theoretically possible
Asked if he would ever entertain a potential Verstappen-Russell lineup given the tense history between the two, Wolff stated that nothing is off the table in that regard.
“Well, I can imagine every lineup,” he said.
“I had Rosberg and Hamilton fighting for a world championship, so everything else afterwards is easy.
“There’s pros and cons of having two drivers fighting each other hard. We’ve seen examples where that functioned and other examples where it didn’t. When it comes to the contract situation, our sport is pressure, constant pressure. Whether you’re in the car, outside of the car, you just need to cope with that, and George knows that, like any other driver knows it.
“I feel that when you’re being put in a comfort zone, sometimes that is actually more detrimental to performance than having a certain pressure point in the system.”
