Mercedes reserve driver Pascal Wehrlein focused on DTM, not F1
Mercedes protege Pascal Wehrlein says his focus remains on winning the DTM championship, despite the prospect that he'll step up to Formula 1 next year
The German was named as Mercedes' reserve driver one year ago, and has represented the reigning world champion in F1 tests regularly since, along with several appearances for customer squad Force India.
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff acknowledges that he's keen to find a way into F1 for the 20-year-old, who says that any move is out of both his mind and hands.
Having led the standings after the Saturday race of the preceding two DTM rounds, Wehrlein left last weekend's Oschersleben event with a 14-point advantage over Mattias Ekstrom.
"The DTM championship is very tough," Wehrlein told AUTOSPORT.
"For the third weekend in a row I'm leading [on the Saturday], then Ekstrom was leading [after the Sunday race] and now I'm going to the Nurburgring with the lead.
"It's still very close, we can score 100 points. Now I'll just try my best, do my best job and then other people will make a decision for next year."
With two DTM rounds remaining, the series concludes at former German Grand Prix venue Hockenheim on October 18, Wehrlein says he is shutting Wolff's comments out of his mind completely.
"At the moment I don't think about it," he added.
"Because if I would think about next year, and forget about this year and not be focused any more, then for sure you would see it in my performances."
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