Max Verstappen has hit back after Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claimed his ongoing winning streak was for “Wikipedia”.
Earlier this month, the reigning world champion surpassed Sebastian Vettel’s previous record of nine straight victories set in 2013 with his 10th win in a row at the Italian Grand Prix.
That drew a somewhat sulky response from Wolff, who suggested such stats have little value.
“Our situation [at Mercedes] was a little bit different because we had two guys fighting against each other within the team,” the Austrian told Sky Sports post-race at Monza.
“I don’t know if he [Verstappen] cares about the records. It is not something that would be important for me, those numbers, it is for Wikipedia and nobody reads that anyway.”
Asked to respond to Wolff ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, the Red Bull driver claimed his comments were likely circumstantial, but also believed Toto should have been more gracious.
“No, I’m not disappointed in that,” he said. “They had a pretty s**t race so probably he was still p***ed off with their performance.
“He almost sounds like he’s an employee of our team sometimes, but luckily not.
“I think it’s just important that you focus on your own team, that’s what we do,” Max added. “That’s what we did in the past as well when we were behind them when they were dominating.
“You should be able to appreciate when a team is doing really well which I think we’ve done in the past because it worked also as a kind of inspiration.
“To see someone that dominant was very impressive at the time and we knew that we just had to work harder, try to be better and get to that level. And now that we are there we’re very happy that we are there and we’re enjoying the moment.”
Verstappen aims to add an 11th straight win this weekend in Singapore, a race he is yet to win with a best result of second in 2018.
And the Dutchman is expecting a tougher weekend than most at Marin Bay.
“Street circuits are a little bit tougher for our car. I still think that we can do a good job, but it will be very tight,” he predicted.
“Normally, at street circuits, Singapore, there’s always a bit more of a risk, a bit more chaos, but we’re here to win and we’ll try to do that.
“I never really looked at number eight, nine, 10, I just always want to do the best I can.
“Of course, I want to try and continue that streak, but I know that there will be a day that it will stop,” Max conceded.