'It's full on' – Wolff wary of growing Red Bull threat to Mercedes

Toto Wolff admits he is wary of the growing threat that Red Bull could pose to Mercedes, after Max Verstappen claimed a dominant victory in the Singapore Grand Prix.

Verstappen enjoyed a near-perfect weekend on the streets of Marina Bay, claiming a double pole and victory in Saturday's Sprint and Sunday's Grand Prix.

The Dutchman's success comes a week after he claimed his first win of the season at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, with Red Bull having made substantial performance gains in recent races.

Despite Mercedes being on the cusp of the drivers' and teams' titles, Team Principal Wolff believes next season could be a completely different story.

"You need to take your hat off for what Red Bull has done this season, how they have developed the car and how it's all come together as a package," he told media post-race in Singapore.

"And then you put Max Verstappen in the car, and when he feels that this thing is driving like he wants it to drive, then these are the results. He's been by far the quickest guy today, he's been the quickest guy in Kuala Lumpur.

"Let's see when our upgrade hopefully starts to work and land in a place where we think it should be, whether we can be competitive against him, but one thing is for sure, next year it's full on the fight between the teams and Red Bull is part of that."

While Red Bull's latest upgrades appear to be making a difference, a major upgrade introduced by Mercedes for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia proved inconclusive.

As a result, Mercedes decided to run back-to-back comparisons in Singapore, with Kimi Antonelli on the new specification and George Russell the previous version, with which he won in Baku.

Antonelli was able to finish third at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, while Russell salvaged P9 after starting from the back of the grid due to power unit component changes, with Wolff cautious about the potential of the newest upgrades.

"When we entered the weekend, we made the highly unusual, or let's say the unusual move in a cutting-edge technology business, to have two different cars because we felt we [needed] to accelerate our learning curve, and that was good," he explained.

"But fundamentally, looking back at the race now – the end of the weekend – I think that this new car needs a very different set-up philosophy than the previous car. And this is what we're learning at the moment.

"Was it an easy car today like the previous one? I don't think it was. Does it have the performance that we were hoping the upgrade would bring? I don't think so yet.

"But it was a step in the right direction. And in Austin we shall see whether we can continue to consolidate that and whether, in effect, it has more performance because it's crucial for the development direction for next year."