Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes the Silver Arrows are level with “the second Red Bull”, driven by Sergio Perez.
Perez’s team-mate Max Verstappen is currently unbeatable, with the Dutchman having won the last eight races.
The reigning World Champion has remarkably won 10 of the 12 completed races in 2023, something which has seen him build a ridiculous 125-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship.
It seemingly doesn’t matter where Verstappen starts from, given that he’s always victorious.
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He won from sixth on the grid last Sunday at the Belgian Grand Prix, whilst he recovered from ninth in Miami to win at the Miami International Autodrome.
Nobody can match the 25-year-old, whereas Perez has proven to be beatable.
Perez has only finished on the podium at four of the last eight races, just one time more than Lewis Hamilton.
As a result, Wolff believes it would be a “fantastic season” if Verstappen wasn’t involved, due to how close the fight is behind.
“I think you just need to take Max out of the equation,” Wolff said, as reported by RaceFans.net. “The second Red Bull is where we are. It would be a fantastic season and close racing [without Verstappen].
“But the sport, the stopwatch never lies. There’s just one guy and one car that are above everything else and we’ve just got to catch up. There’s no choice.”
Wolff is convinced that the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin and McLaren are on a par with Perez, but that Verstappen is simply “one-and-a-half seconds a lap” quicker than everyone else.
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Verstappen went from sixth to first in Belgium in just 17 laps, before he went on to win by 22 seconds over Perez to secure victory at the legendary venue for third season in a row.
“I think you can take Perez into the equation,” Wolff said.
“We are racing each other, we seem to be following a similar development routes, but there’s just one car that is faster today that was one-and-a-half seconds a lap when he was pushing at the beginning of the stint. So we’ve got to get on top of it.”