Wolff: 'Don't give up until the championship is mathematically impossible'

After a mediocre weekend for Mercedes in Austria, Lewis Hamilton is now 32 points behind Max Verstappen in the championship. In the constructors' championship the gap to Red Bull Racing is even bigger, at 44 points. Team owner Toto Wolff is not giving up yet.

"We will never give up the fight. That's the last thing we do. If I have to give up, you will see me walking through the fire with my hand and sword up, or however you say it," Wolff clarified to Motorsport-Total.com.

"I'm always a skeptical person, the glass is always half empty," Wolff revealed. Yet he remains positive about the championship, despite the lack of speed. "In the last two races in Austria or the last few races we clearly didn't have the performance we need to have to fight against Red Bull. And we are very aware of that."

Mercedes is far from giving up

Sunday's race was not as bad as it seems at first glance. "It's a good result," the team boss believes. "If we hadn't been stuck behind the McLaren at the start, where we lost a lot of time, we could have raced against him [Verstappen]," he says convincingly.

"But the race pace was there and it would have been good," Wolff continues. According to him, there was a clear improvement compared to the Styrian GP.

"We have no intention of giving up at this stage of the season. We will not give up at any stage of the season, unless it is mathematically no longer possible to win this championship," Wolff ends. With fourteen races to go, the championship is far from over.