24/07/2023
NEWS STORY
As Max Verstappen wins by over 33 seconds, Toto Wolff admits that the Red Bull is in a class of its own.
In recent weeks there has been growing excitement as it was perceived that Red Bull was finally losing its advantage. Be it in qualifying or the race, we were told that the opposition was closing in.
Then, on his way to scoring the Austrian team's record twelfth successive win, Max Verstappen leads home Lando Norris by 33.731 seconds, the biggest winning margin of the season so far.
As the Dutchman heads towards the summer break with a 110 point advantage of his Red Bull teammate, and coming off the back of a seventh successive win, there is talk that he could wrap up the championship before Singapore, with seven races remaining.
With no end in sight to the team's domination, and neither F1 or the FIA looking likely to stop the Red Bull steamroller, Toto Wolff admits that there is little that can be done to prevent the walkover.
"It's a meritocracy," he told Sky Sports. "We are going to fight back and win races and championships but today you've seen the pace that Max had, and you saw it already on the long runs on Friday.
"That is where they are," he continued. "It is like a field of Formula 2 cars against a Formula 1. They've done the best job. Within the regulations, they've done the best job.
"Clearly yesterday was a mega Lewis lap," he said, referring to Hamilton's pole position. "We screwed it up with George in qualifying.
"I think we had the second quickest car today, if you look at the lap time profile and also where George came from. But we just didn't monetise on it. But having said that, you see where Verstappen is doing his laps and that needs to be the target and that is far off at the moment."
Referring to Hamilton's failure to convert pole into a win, the Austrian said: "The start certainly played a role but you know that can happen. Maybe we also brought the tyres in very carefully, maybe too carefully, and you can see the lap time difference towards the end.
"I think we reeled in 15 seconds, and we were missing 1.9s or so to Perez and just four seconds to Lando, or less, and I think we had that."
Check out our Sunday gallery from the Hungaroring here.