Ferrari respond to Wolff’s “F2” remark: “The same when Mercedes were in front”

The Mercedes team principal Wolff claimed that the dominance of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was “like a field of Formula 2 cars against a Formula 1 [car]”.

That comparison was highlighted by his Ferrari counterpart Vasseur who said: “Give him an F2 car and he will see. 

“Red Bull are in front but I think the feeling was probably the same when Mercedes was in front a couple of years ago. 

“And I won't go [into] this field, I think honestly that the most important is to be focused on yourself to try to get the best from what we have, to minimise the mistake, to do a better job and then what will come will come. 

“But I'm not sure that makes sense to try to do this kind of assumption.”

Verstappen won the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix to keep alive Red Bull’s run of winning every race this season, and was joined on the podium by teammate Sergio Perez and McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was fourth while the Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was P7 and Carlos Sainz P8.

Vasseur said about the constructors’ champions: “Red Bull is also bringing upgrades and upgrades and upgrades. And I think that everybody is improving but the reality of the regulations and the cost gap is that we are improving much less than in the past. 

“It means that when there is a gap, and a real gap, it's quite difficult to catch up but one weekend to the others that over the last four or five weekends it was a one time ahead in quali, one time McLaren, one time Mercedes but we are always behind Red Bull and at least on the race they have still a huge gap. 

“To catch up, it's not that you are thinking about the Red Bull and to say well what we have to do, you have to work on yourself. 

“It means that we are developing, we are developing in every single direction, we are trying to improve aero, suspension and whatever we can do. 

“We are pushing like hell to do a better job but if you have a look, and this is crucial, with the bouncing and so, it's not when you are bringing upgrades that you are doing a huge step forward. 

“We brought big things in Barcelona and we were potentially better the week after. 

“I think Alfa Romeo brought something two weeks ago and they did a very good job this weekend, at least on quali. 

“It means that the understanding of the upgrade is also crucial and it's not just about a package on a package.”

• Charles Leclerc reveals Ferrari radio problems have plagued recent races

Vasseur denied that Leclerc, who later explained having issues with Ferrari’s team radio, became overly emotional in his mid-race communications.

“No, no, he was not emotional at all,” Vasseur said. “Listen to Gasly and Ocon!

“First we were not able to understand what did he say because he had an issue with the microphone.

“I don't know if you heard but I don't think that you were able to understand perfectly. And he was not emotional, he was worried about the pace and so.

“I spent the last 35 years or something like this of my life on the pitwall and every single Monday of my career you have to do the list and you have a long list of mistakes, sometimes you can see it sometimes not. 

“But the job of the team principal is to do the list with the team members and to fix it.

“And I'm very open with you to say that we are doing too many mistakes, but I think it's true if you ask the question to Toto, it will be approximately on the same line as me.”