03/09/2018
NEWS STORY
Understandably buoyant after an emphatic defeat of Ferrari on its home ground which will have caused the Italian team much pain, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff insists there will be letting up as the title fight intensifies.
"We will give it everything in Singapore and all of the remaining races," says the Austrian, though his team enjoys a 25 point lead in the team standings, and Lewis Hamilton a 30 point advantage over Sebastian Vettel.
"We'll turn the factories in Brixworth and Brackley upside down to extract performance and go to Singapore with the aim of doing the best," he continued. "Whether that is good enough to win the race or not, I don't know. But, the next seven races are going to be maximum attack.
"It just shows how fantastic this sport is where things bounce back and forth, we are all oscillating between drama and glory. This is the ingredient of a great Championship," he added.
Referring to yesterday's race which was widely tipped to be a walkover for Ferrari, he said: "It shows that the racing happens on Sunday.
"I am very proud of the work the team has done, all the engine guys and the chassis, from Spa to Monza," he added. "We have understood the car better, we have understood the tyres better. We have added some performance and even if Saturday didn't show it because we couldn't qualify on pole, I felt that we've done some good work over the last couple of days.
"I would have said that even if we hadn't won," he insisted. "Nevertheless, we didn't have the quickest car on Saturday, but on Sunday we did.
"We had a reliable car, we had a car that was good on the tyres. There was no blistering on our tyres, as there was on the Ferrari, and brilliant execution from both drivers and the team."
Referring to 'wingman' Valtteri Bottas, who held Kimi Raikkonen at bay, allowing Hamilton to build a lead whilst also causing the Ferrari driver to push his tyres, he said: "Valtteri's strategy not only worked for Lewis, keeping Kimi behind, but it also worked for Valtteri.
"We knew we had to keep him out long because we'd lost the position already to Verstappen. We needed to keep him out long to create the largest possible tyre offset at the end of the race, it was his best shot for the podium."