Wolff: We need two to crash in front to win at the moment

George Russell was running in third as Norris and Verstappen were tussling for the race win, and when the two crashed, he inherited the lead, fending off Oscar Piastri in the remaining McLaren to take his second Formula 1 career win.

The win last Sunday ended Mercedes' winning drought which goes back to the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix which was also won by Russell, but Wolff admitted there is still work to do before his team can be genuine winners.

Mercedes have been working on luring Verstappen away from Red Bull, the Dutchman and his boss Christian Horner both insisting that wasn't happening, at least for 2025.

Speaking to the media in Spielberg, including GrandPrix247, Wolff was asked if Mercedes' win last Sunday was good enough to convince the reigning F1 Champion to jump ship from Red Bull, who are now fighting hard to keep their advantage as McLaren have closed the gap, Mercedes are improving, and somehow Ferrari.

Wolff was realistic in his answer, he said: "Well, we need two to crash in the front to win at the moment. I think we still need to look at ourselves and say ‘what can we do in order to have a car that can race with these two [Verstappen and Norris] at the front and do it more regularly?’

"This would be a moment where we can say that we can be a harbour, a port of destination for the best drivers, including Max.

"But we are not there yet, so I am not – if I was him, I wouldn’t be considering such a move yet," the Austrian admitted.

Mercedes, with Lewis Hamilton back in 2021, had a bitter fight with Verstappen and Red Bull, one the Dutchman won, but there were many controversial moments on the way.

And while McLaren team boss Andrea Stella claimed that had Verstappen been penalized properly for any transgressions back in 2021, the incident with Norris at the Red Bull Ring could have been avoided, Wolff was a bit more cautious tackling same assumption.

He said: "I don’t think you can take this conclusion. It has been so long that, in a way, from our side, we are just in a different place today and I think he is.

"It takes two to tango. I haven’t seen Lando and Max’s race, I haven’t seen how all of that came about, so I need to watch it before having an opinion.

"But I wouldn’t place that as a big consequence of 2021 not having been managed well to what happens in 2024. I don’t think there is correlation," Wolff concluded.