Wolff preaches focus: We haven’t got the trophies in our hands

Toto Wolff wants Mercedes to maintain its recent approach and not get distracted by title talk ahead of the final four races of the season.

Lewis Hamilton will win the drivers’ championship in Austin if he outscores Sebastian Vettel by eight points or more, while Mercedes can secure the constructors’ championship in Mexico if it picks up eight more points than Ferrari in the next two races. Despite Hamilton winning the last four rounds -- leading home teammate Valtteri Bottas in each of the last two -- Wolff doesn’t want his team to consider the championship picture.

“I think it’s important to stay concentrated,” Wolff said. “I don’t believe that having your hands on the trophy, because you either have it in your hands or not, and we haven’t got it in our hands. We haven’t got the drivers' trophy in our hands and we haven’t got the constructors' trophy in our hands, which is a little bit further away.

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“So the way we’ve approached things is take it race weekend by race weekend and try to optimize the car for every weekend and really take it as an ambitious target to perform at all tracks in all kinds of conditions and take every single race weekend as a new championship from Friday to Sunday, and this has worked so far.”

Although Ferrari’s recent struggles have left Mercedes closing in both titles, Wolff insists his team has been paying no attention to how the Scuderia has been performing.

“I think what we’re trying to do is really to look at ourselves. They had a very strong Spa weekend, and we didn’t perform as per the expectations that we have now. Since then we have continued to really try to optimize 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; it’s just aligning those weekends that eventually hopefully will lead to a situation where we say we have won it.”