<\/p>\n
Verstappen completed a near-perfect weekend at Marina Bay, securing pole position and victory in Saturday\u2019s Sprint before repeating the result in Sunday\u2019s Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The victory followed Verstappen\u2019s first win of the season at the Malaysian Grand Prix, where Red Bull demonstrated substantial performance gains from recent upgrades. \u201cYou need to take your hat off to what Red Bull has done this season, how they have developed the car and how it has all come together as a package,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you put Max Verstappen in the car, and Verstappen feels that the car is driving the way Verstappen wants it to drive, then these are the results.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mercedes remains close to securing the drivers\u2019 and constructors\u2019 championships, but Wolff expects Red Bull to become a stronger challenger next season. \u201cVerstappen has been by far the quickest guy today and was the quickest guy in Kuala Lumpur,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing is for sure, next year it\u2019s full-on competition between the teams, and Red Bull is part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mercedes introduced a major upgrade at Sepang, but the initial results were inconclusive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The team conducted back-to-back comparisons in Singapore, with Kimi Antonelli driving the upgraded specification while George Russell used the previous version.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Antonelli finished third, while Russell recovered to ninth after starting at the back of the grid because of power-unit component changes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wolff said testing two specifications had accelerated Mercedes\u2019 understanding of the upgraded car.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThis new car needs a very different set-up philosophy from the previous car,\u201d Wolff said. \u201cThis is what we\u2019re learning at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wolff acknowledged that the latest package had not yet produced the expected performance or the handling characteristics of the older specification. \u201cWas it an easy car today like the previous one? I don\u2019t think it was,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes it have the performance that we were hoping the upgrade would bring? I don\u2019t think so yet. But it was a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–F1\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37072,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-47719","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff says Red Bull\u2019s recent improvement has established the team as a serious threat after Max Verstappen dominated the Singapore Grand Prix.","published_date":"","news_description":"Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff says Red Bull\u2019s recent improvement has established the team as a serious threat after Max Verstappen dominated the Singapore Grand Prix.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47726,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47719\/revisions\/47726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=47719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}