In recent months, many photos and videos of Toto Wolff appeared on social media. Some were real, but also a lot were fake. Toto Wolff himself can laugh about it and laughingly referred to a porn movie where his face would allegedly appear in.

Over the past months, there was a lot of speculation: is Max Verstappen going to Mercedes? Everyone thought they knew the outcome and the so-called proof popped up every now and then. Among all that alleged evidence, there were also many photos that were fake. Mostly produced by AI.

It is the opening of the conversation with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, when he joins a session with a select group of the Dutch media, including GPblog. Wolff appears to have seen it, and even manages to derive amusement from it.  

The first day back on track after the summer break saw Red Bull off the pace, far from the frontrunners, as was expected. Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda finished the first session in sixth and sixteenth, respectively.

Things improved slightly in the afternoon, with the four-time world champion moving up to fifth, while the Japanese driver made a more significant leap in FP2, ending the session in seventh.  

A result that will still require the engineers on track and at Milton Keynes to work hard overnight, in hopes of bringing an RB21 to the track tomorrow capable of at least challenging for a podium in a Grand Prix that looks set to be unpredictable weather-wise.

Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Waché wrapped up the opening day of the Dutch weekend.