11/10/2018
NEWS STORY
If Sebastian Vettel's insistence that the title is not yet lost is reminiscent of his beloved Monty Python's Black Knight, it's unclear who exactly Toto Wolff takes after.
Despite a 67-point advantage in the drivers' standings and a 78-point lead in the team standings', the Austrian is still adopting the underdog stance, insisting that anything can happen.
"Freak incidents happen everywhere," he insists. "A DNF and the consequent bad result suddenly wipes off a large chunk of your points.
"I know from the public standpoint it doesn't look likely," he admits, "but this is motor racing, it's a sport, anything could happen.
I don't want to even think about him breaking a finger," he said Lewis Hamilton, though quite why he might break a finer the Austrian doesn't explain. "Anything can happen in motor racing, and I don't want to dwell to much about it, because this is bad karma too, so let's just get it done, let's go to Austin, let's have a strong race weekend and then hopefully see the championship."
Despite the recent run of six wins from seven races, including back-to-back 1-2s in Russia and Japan, Wolff insists he has been focussing purely on his own team and not Ferrari's shortcomings.
"I think what we're trying to do is really to look at ourselves," he says. "They had a very strong weekend in Spa-Francorchamps, and we didn't perform as per the expectations that we have now. Since then we have continued to really try to optimise our package and do the best possible job on the car and in the car with the drivers, and that has proven as the right tactic.
"Somehow none of us are looking at where Ferrari is or how the championship goes," he insists, "it's just aligning those weekends that eventually hopefully will lead to a situation where we say we have won it."