Mercedes are fast closing on a world championship double, but Red Bull are threatening to end the 2026 season with F1's fastest car after back-to-back wins for Max Verstappen; watch every session of the United States GP in Austin from Friday evening, live on Sky Sports F1
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Toto Wolff believes in-form Red Bull will be a central part of the "full-on fight" he is expecting at the front of the Formula 1 field into 2027.
Wolff's Mercedes team are closing in on a world championship double heading into the closing races of this season, with Kimi Antonelli able to clinch the drivers' title as early as this weekend's United States Grand Prix if results go his way.
The strength of Mercedes' challenge in both championship races was built on a flying start to the season - which has been the first of the sport's new regulation era - with eight wins from the campaign's first 10 rounds.
However, their win rate has slowed since then with three victories in the last seven, with Ferrari, McLaren and latterly Red Bull all showing ability to challenge the Silver Arrows on race weekends.
Red Bull, in particular, had started the season lagging behind the leading pace but Max Verstappen has now won the last two races, a turnaround in form which Mercedes chief Wolff has been impressed by.
"I really think that you need to take your hat off to what Red Bull has done this season," said Wolff after Verstappen's dominant victory in Singapore.
"How they have developed the car and how it's all come together as a package and then you put Max Verstappen in the car and he feels a thing that wants it to drive, then these are the results.
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"By far the quickest guy [in Singapore], the quickest guy in Kuala Lumpur and let's see when our upgrade hopefully starts to work and land in a place where it should be, whether we can be competitive against him, but one thing is for sure, next year, it's a full-on fight between the teams and Red Bull is part of that."
Wolff also believes Red Bull's power unit, the first in their history, has been performing strongly.
"I haven't seen the data yet from Singapore, but you can't see that it's lagging," added Wolff.
"They have done it well. The ICE [Internal Combustion Unit] seems to be very competitive. Obviously, you can see that with the ADUO [ranking, which Red Bull have found to be leading] but also in terms of energy recovery and energy deployment, they're pretty good."
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Red Bull now head to Austin's Circuit of the Americas chasing a third win in succession this weekend as their late-season bid to overhaul McLaren for third in the Constructors' Championship continues.
