Toto Wolff drops Max Verstappen praise while discussing Red Bull's sudden decline

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praised Max Verstappen after the F1 Italian GP while he tried to make sense of Red Bull's sudden drop in performances. The Austrian team has been dominant in the last couple of seasons, with Max cruising to world titles with races to spare.

While the 2024 F1 season started on a positive note for Red Bull, with Max Verstappen dominating the first two races, it was in Miami when McLaren introduced a major upgrade that things started to change.

The team lost to McLaren on performance that weekend, with Lando Norris picking up his first career win. From that point onward, the two competitors have been on different trajectories. While the Milton Keynes-based squad has regressed, the Woking-based squad continues to improve.

The race in Monza was arguably one of the biggest examples of this, where Red Bull was the 4th fastest car in terms of performance while McLaren locked out the front row.

After the race, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was questioned about what he felt was going on at Red Bull. In response, Wolff acknowledged that this was certainly not the dominant outfit that started the season but praised Max Verstappen for masking a lot of the car deficiencies earlier in the season and still winning races. Wolff said (via "Planet F1"):

“I mean, I have no insight, obviously, but that is not at all the Red Bull of the start of the year – dominant. I think that Max was able to keep it going for a while with his ability, but it seems now that, from the sheer results – and that’s what I see without understanding, without knowing what’s going on inside because it could also be a blip," Wolff said.

“That was probably one of the worst races that we’ve seen for many years, to have no pace. But who am I to say that? We’ve been two years where nothing functioned and the same with Ferrari a few races ago,” he added.

---

Wolff picks McLaren over Red Bull as the favorite for the title

Despite their slump in form, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff felt that the Austrian squad was still a formidable force in F1 and reckoned that missteps in development are confusing for everyone, but he expected the team to bounce back in due time. Wolff did, however, opine that McLaren was now one of the clear favorites for the title courtesy of their recent rise. As quoted by the aforementioned source, Wolff said:

“They (Red Bull) are a formidable team, and I’m sure there will be better races, but, I mean, McLaren is clearly the favourite now for the Constructors’ Championship, they have two drivers scoring. I bet Red Bull didn’t expect that at the beginning of the year.”

The gap between Red Bull and McLaren after the race in Monza is just 8 points now, and the momentum appears to be with the Woking-based squad to win the title.