People praising Max Verstappen is my kink

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Toto Wolff opens up on what life without Lewis Hamilton will be like 👀🏎️ | Aus GP 🏁 | Fox Motorsport (8:16 - 12:25)

Q: Do you think having Max in your car right now would add to performance?  No. He's extraordinary. But we would give him a car that's a handful, difficult to set up and drive. I'd rather make that step and be out there and say this is a car you could drive because it's going fast.  Q: Do you think that you're going to have a decision on that anytime soon? What is the timeframe around actually knowing who that person is going to be next to George?  We were taken aback by Lewis' decision so quickly, now I want to really take my time. We have a slot free. The only one in the top teams, unless Max decides he goes, then the slot is not gonna be free with us anymore. There are a few options that are really interesting for us. From the very young super talent, to some of the other ones who are very experienced, and that's not gonna happen in the next few weeks or a month or so. I want to continue to monitor the market.  Q: So when is it likely that you'll have a decision? Is it something that you do post season at the end of the year?  Towards the summer. Q: Will George's performance influence the decision that you make, ultimately on the teammate that he'll have?  No, he's a bank. He's having that seat. He has been part of our junior programme for a long time. The reason why is because he's great. It's about the second seat.  Q: But by that I mean, if George can perform this year you'll look for someone that is younger and less experienced to be second to him or perhaps if it doesn't go his way, do you need to offer experience?  Well, I don't know yet. It depends also what Max does. Then we have a young kid that is very promising. Don't want to put more extra pressure on him but it looks like he can be one of the great ones. But we also don't want to drown him jumping so quickly in an F1 car by 17. There's a few options that we could play with. Obviously there's Fernando, who's very exciting. And Carlos, very good. So there's a few ones. Q: You have a huge decision to make, don't you?  Yeah, but this time I'm going to play like the bride: difficult to get.  Q: Excellent. You had an opportunity to sign Max before he signed for Red Bull. How do you look back on that time now? Is he the one that got away? I mean, like I said, hindsight is a beautiful thing.  You know a lot about us. Yeah, I've seen him in Formula Three and he was very good. And I have a good relationship with his father. So we sat down in my home in Vienna and said what can we do? I wasn't able to give him a Formula One seat. I said let's do F2 together, it was GP2 back in the day. We fully fund it and then I'll guarantee a seat next year in the car. And they said well, we have an offer from Red Bull for an Alpha Tauri basically from now on. That was it. I knew that we wouldn't be able to compete with it. Half into the season, he replaced another driver in Red Bull and took the seat and here we go. He's a three time world champion.  Q: So there it's a little bit poetic between you two then if you were able to snatch Max, it would sort of come full circle considering what you've been through together.  Exactly. It's always the kind of relationship that needs to happen at a certain stage. But we don't know when.  Q: He's your number one pick?  Yes, I mean, you see what his performance levels are, but I wouldn't want to discount the other ones too. We have to look at ourselves and say what is it we can do with this car, and then it becomes much easier whoever drives the second car. It becomes much easier for George, because he has the potential of being a world champion. Much more the team's problem to solve than really looking for a silver bullet with an amazing driver.  Q: Well Toto I'm wishing all the best for the Australian Grand Prix. You're not promising anything but you've come from behind much further down the grid so anything is possible in Formula One. Thanks for joining us on Fox Sports and all the best for the rest of the year. Thank you very much.

Q: Let's talk about this season just as a whole, because some of the records that Max and the team have broken this year are insane. 10 wins in a row for for Max this season. 14 wins in a row for the team. You've won 26 of the last 28 races. That is just utter domination. I saw that you put up a Instagram post that said, I've never seen anything closer to perfection than what Max Verstappen has achieved this year. Tell me about that perfection that Max has achieved. Calum Nicholas: It seems to be his nature that he will just chase every last bit. He will leave nothing on the table. It's great to have. It puts the pressure on us to make sure that we deliver, which is great. The nature of the people in the garage: we thrive on that pressure. It's what drives us. We want to be the best every single week. Watching what Max has done, week in, week out and having the sort of knowledge that as long as we do our job and the car is reliable and it does what he needs it to do, I know he's gonna deliver. It's just one of those things. You go into a race weekend and it's nice because... I've always said this, it doesn't matter where you are in the pit lane. It doesn't matter what garage you are in, you are doing the same hours. Everybody's working such long hours, Saturday or Sunday can be 16 hour days easily. So it's nice to know that you've got everything in place, that you've put yourself in the best position to get a result from that work. Q: And what's Max like to work with? Million dollar question. I'm sure you get asked it a lot. But what's he like? Calum Nicholas: I've always thought this is odd to me that people can't see sometimes how brilliant he is. For me, when he's in the garage, when he's not in a race car, he's one of us. And he really is. He engages with us, just as you want any of your other colleagues to engage with you. He's kind. He cares about the people around him. And it's brilliant, and I like the fact that he can get into the car and close his lid and then he should be ruthless. You're a sports person. We're here to win. He's here to win. And I think it's great that he's able to switch between the both. And he really does. Q: You've worked with quite a few drivers in your time. You've been at Red Bull since 2015. So you've worked with a few other drivers. What attributes does Max have? You've worked with Ricardo, you've worked Kyvat, you've worked with Gasly, Albon. What are their traits, what what do they all share? And maybe what are the differences between between some of them? Calum Nicholas: Where I think Max is probably different to most of the others is that Max over the years has managed to encompass so many of the great attributes of the drivers that we've seen before. Max, when he arrived in F1, it was clear that he had this raw, unbridled talent, this raw speed. Over the years, he's just grown and grown and he's added everything to his arsenal. His race management, his way of seeing the holistic picture, his determination. All of these things are what's put him in the position that he's in now. It's a way that he's been able to encompass so many things that so many great drivers have had, and bring them all together to make them work. When you see an athlete in their prime, in their absolute prime, you look at them and you say that's a package that right now no one can beat. That's what it is. When you're an athlete in that position, it's your job to try and stretch that out for as long as you can, and stay in that zone. That little window of perfection. That's what Max is able to do right now. He's just able to just extract everything from himself. It's amazing to see up close. It really is. Q: I'm jealous that you get to see behind the scenes. Obviously we only see the stuff on the on the television, but I'm sure a lot goes on behind the scenes that we don't see and it must be amazing. To be up close.

Q: Does this blind trust in computers also apply to pilots? Franz Tost: No, it's exactly the opposite. The pilots should study as much data as possible in order to constantly improve. Far too often I found that a driver didn't even know what vehicle setup his teammate was using. You can only continually improve your performance if you analyze your laps and races retrospectively. Q: Michael Schumacher was someone who spent hours on it... Franz Tost: Yes, but Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly are also meticulous workers. Michael and Co. always knew how they could improve and where their teammate's weaknesses were. Right from the start, the champions spent most of their time on the race track with the engineers and data. Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen all have this in common. Q: Can you recognize a champion at an early age? Franz Tost: Not a champion, but a natural talent. It's about a pilot's skills and his relationship to speed. With Michael you never had the feeling that he was overwhelmed, even on his first lap in a Formula 1 car. It was the same with his brother Ralf. And with Max Verstappen. When he drove a Formula 1 car for the first time in Suzuka at the age of 17, he got along straight away, despite the much higher speed. He also had no problems when braking, despite the enormous centrifugal forces of up to 6G. Q: Max Verstappen is the current dominator of Formula 1. Do you see anyone who can hold a candle to him in the future? Franz Tost: No. If Max continues to have a good car, he will win many more races and titles. He's still not at his limit and will get even better. No driver who is or will be his teammate will ever progress beyond the role of number 2 driver.