Toto Wolff has accepted that Max Verstappen deserved to win the 2021 world championship.
Speaking on the SAP podcast, the Mercedes team principal said he and Lewis Hamilton have finally come to terms with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix finale that decided the title.
“But then how that race panned out? That’s still something which is going to stick forever. Now I’ve made my peace and so did Lewis.”
“Max is a deserving world champion, definitely, and the season isn’t defined by one single afternoon or evening.”
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From ‘lunatic’ to ‘deserving’
The tone is a sharp shift from Wolff’s comments less than a year earlier. In late 2025, he described the race director’s late-race calls in Abu Dhabi as the work of “one lunatic who can basically destroy the record of the greatest champion of all time”.
The 2021 finale was decided when Masi allowed only the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap themselves before restarting the race with a single lap to go. Verstappen, on fresh soft tyres, overtook the older-tyre Hamilton on the final lap and won the championship by eight points.
Silverstone dragged it back into view
The subject resurfaced after the British Grand Prix on 5 July 2026, which ended behind the safety car with no last-lap dash. Speaking to reporters, Wolff drew a direct line between how the FIA handled Silverstone and how it had handled Abu Dhabi.
“I would have preferred for this to happen in 2021. That was more important.”
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“It’s good that the regulations have been followed. Sometimes it doesn’t give for the most exciting finale.”
Verstappen is sixth as the peace arrives
The acceptance lands as Verstappen is having his worst season since he became a title contender. He sits sixth in the 2026 drivers’ championship with 112 points after 12 rounds, without a victory and with a best result of second in Austria and Hungary, as Red Bull has struggled to unlock Formula 1’s new power-unit and chassis regulations.
Kimi Antonelli leads for Mercedes, and Hamilton is chasing his first world title in a red car after a maiden Ferrari win at the Spanish Grand Prix earlier in the season.
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