Wolff "100% certain" Red Bull will roar back in Hungary

Mercedes

Wolff "100% certain" Red Bull will roar back in Hungary

Slower Hungaroring may help Mercedes' main rival

Ian Parkes

Wednesday 15 July 2020 17:09

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has no doubt Red Bull will prove a far tougher proposition when Formula 1 pitches up in Hungary this weekend.

The reigning six-time constructors' champions again proved they will be the team to beat following victories in the season-opening back-to-back races at the Red Bull Ring.

Given Ferrari's woes this season, Red Bull appears to be the only team that can challenge Mercedes, although was found wanting to some degree in Austria.

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Wolff, though, is expecting a different scenario at the Hungaroring. He said: "I'm 100 per cent convinced they will come back very strong in Hungary.

"It's a track that historically they have shown great performance. We have improved there, too, in the last few years, but it was always a difficult weekend.

"Hot temperatures are still a little bit of an Achilles heel for us, and as far as I have seen on the weather forecast, it could be up to 30 degrees on Sunday, so we need to prepare well and put all the focus on Budapest."

Red Bull may yet have the edge at a circuit that is renowned for its tight, twisty nature, in particular, as Wolff claims its car was noticeably quicker through the slower-speed corners at the Red Bull Ring.

"Where we lost [out] to Red Bull was the slow-speed, particularly turns three and four," said Wolff. "These seemed to be vulnerabilities.

"On the straights and in the fast corners we are quicker, so we just need to continue to develop, to push and understand the car.

"Budapest is a totally different ballgame, lots of downforce, lots of slow and medium-speed corners, so we'll see how it works there."

While it naturally appears as if Mercedes appear destined for a seventh constructors' crown, and the drivers' title fight will be a duel between Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, Wolff is far more sceptical, as has often been his mantra over the years.

"I don't want to bore you with repeating the mindset we have mentioned, but we are always sceptical about our own performance," insisted Wolff.

"We always think it's not good enough, almost like hunting ourselves down, and that is the mindset of this team - never to be satisfied with a result.

"When you listen to our debrief on Monday morning after winning a race, you would think this is a team that lost out badly. It's just a culture that we have developed over the years, that we never blame a person, we always blame the problem.

"The first weekend in Austria was proof. We won the race with Valtteri but we didn't finish in a satisfactory position with Lewis, we were worried about a DNF with both cars, and the next weekend we came back very strong.

"Problems with reliability were solved, we had a very competitive car, and a very competitive driver line-up, so we just want to take it session by session, weekend by weekend, adding up points, learning from the bad days, and collecting the points on good days."

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