"Worried for tomorrow" - Toto Wolff fears Max Verstappen's race pace, claims he was "much faster" during practice

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has expressed concerns over Max Verstappen’s race pace, saying he is “worried” about the race.

Speaking about Red Bull’s pace over the long run in an interview with Sky Sports F1, Toto Wolff said:

“I'm worried for tomorrow because the long runs were much better on Friday. But our tires were just not in the window, but theirs were. As you can see Q1 and Q2 was ours. It looked like a pretty easy run and suddenly you lose all the performance.”

However, when pressed by former F1 world champion Jenson Button about the Mercedes' pace over the long run when a tire warm-up wouldn’t be an issue, Wolff conceded that Mercedes still have the pace over the long run.

Mercedes topped timesheets on Friday during FP3 and looked to have the upper hand over Red Bull in terms of race pace. Meanwhile, Red Bull have opted for an aggressive low-downforce setup this weekend in an effort to offset the straight-line difference to Mercedes.

During the final part of qualifying, Max Verstappen was nearly five-tenths faster than Lewis Hamilton and was achieving near-identical top speeds compared to Hamilton’s Mercedes in the speed traps.

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Max Verstappen forced to start the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on sub-optimal tires

Although Max Verstappen delivered an impressive lap during the final part of qualifying to clinch pole from Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes, his Q2 runs didn’t go as planned.

During the initial Q2 run, Verstappen locked up into turn one and “massively” flat spotted his medium tires. This puts him out of sync with the rest of the field.

While his second run on the mediums looked good enough to reach Q3, Red Bull chose to send Verstappen on the soft tires for another run, thereby opting to start the Grand Prix on those tires.

The faster soft tires can potentially help Max Verstappen get off the line quicker on race start, reducing the chances of being overtaken by medium-shod Hamilton in P2. Furthermore, Lando Norris in P3 and Sergio Perez in P4 are also on soft tires, potentially allowing them a chance to overtake Hamilton and hinder Mercedes’ strategy.

Furthermore, the cooler track temperatures during the race could play into Red Bull’s hands.

On the other hand, the medium tires will start to perform on par with the softs by lap six to seven, according to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. This potentially opens more opportunities for Mercedes in terms of strategy compared to Red Bull. Wolff has already said that his team is considering going for aggressive undercuts in an effort to wrestle track position away from Max Verstappen.