Wolff: Vettel would be 'good marketing' for Mercedes
Toto Wolff has admitted signing German Sebastian Vettel for 2021 would be a "good marketing story" for Mercedes.
Many believe the quadruple world champion, having decided to leave Ferrari, will not settle for a midfield seat like Renault.
"There are still some interesting places for him," Mercedes team boss told the Austrian broadcaster ORF.
"But he will decide for himself whether he wants to stop or go to another team. Sebastian has everything in his hands.
"Of course, a German driver in a German car is a good marketing story. We are focused exclusively on success," Wolff insisted.
"Sebastian is of course someone who is really good," he added.
Wolff also told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that it is "a shame that a bit of an era is coming to an end" with Vettel's Ferrari exit.
"His word has weight in Formula 1," the Austrian added. "He is also a bit of an antithesis to the generation of young guys who have been coming into sport for a few years now.
"No good team will simply ignore a four-time world champion suddenly appearing on the market."
But Wolff denied that Mercedes is poised to make a decision about 2021.
"We certainly won't get ourselves into this situation," he said, referring to McLaren and Ferrari's early calls about who will drive for them in 2021.
"How do you deal with innovation and development when you know that your driver can use it against you the next year? We don't want to put ourselves in the same situation."
However, Wolff acknowledged that the contracts of both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas run out at the end of 2020.
"That's why we think about what to do with George Russell and then there's the Vettel scenario. But that's not first on the agenda right now because we want to focus on our own team first."
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I am convinced that if Seb wants to continue racing next season Toto is considering him as next Mercedes driver and we all know there is no other person like him in F1, for years most of F1 publicity has been focused on Vettel and Toto certainly indicated that Vettel plays a great part in promoting F1 and Mercedes would be a right team to go to and possibly finish his career with another title.Besides Seb still has a chance to become 5 times champion this final year with Ferrari and that would be something amazing to see, but I am not sure that Ferrari will give him the best car or support to achieve that.
I totally agree. I can see Seb going to Mercedes, if not next year, the year after, probably at the expense of Bottas. And I still believe Lewis will finish his career at Ferrari. Sainz has a short shelf life there, but he doesn't know it yet, unless he is capable of blowing away Leclerc. The question is, if Lewis matches Michael this year with seven titles, he might jump to Ferrari sooner than expected, which will give us a Vettel/Bottas partnership at Mercedes and a Leclerc/Hamilton partnership at Ferrari. But the joker in the pack is Max. He is capable of becoming WDC THIS YEAR, if all the cards fall into place, and then that will have Mercedes asking him to name his price. A Vettel/Verstappen partnership at Mercedes? Could happen!
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