Wolff: “We are not yet at the level of Red Bull and Ferrari”

Mercedes has improved the base compared to last year. That is a fact and Toto Wolff confirmed it in remarks on ‘Sky Sports F1’. However, the Austrian does not believe that it is enough to fight with Ferrari and Red Bull from the start, sure that it will take a little more to see Hamilton and Russell fight for the win.

“We have to be realistic, Red Bull and Ferrari are fast, they have similar characteristics to 2022, maybe Ferrari is even faster, their level is very high. If we are all closer? This is our goal, there is no reason to believe that we will not be competitive, but we are not yet at the level of Red Bull and Ferrari.”he pointed out, sure that the team will be faster than last year to be in that fight.

“And the fight for the title? That is the objective, but today I am not optimistic. We are a team that will develop quickly, we will analyze the data and see”, he added, not wanting to reject any hypothesis and confirm that last year’s ‘porpoising’ had disappeared.

In 2022, their W13 was born with a lot of problems, and despite this, they managed to build a car with a lot of fundamental misconceptions until they fought at the top at the end of the course. This year, the W14 was born with the aim of solving the car’s problems from last year. Wolff is clear that the base from which they start this year is better, so logic says that if they got to the top at the end of last year starting with a worse car, this year they can do it earlier. when? Therein lies the question.

At the moment, there are already several rumors related to the evolutions that Mercedes wants to carry out in the first part of the course. There are even voices confirming that they now have new pontoons in the purest Red Bull style in the wind tunnel that will be on display at the first part of the course. However, Wolff also warned that his team was holding cards.

“We lack rear grip. Ferrari is fast, no doubt. It’s hard to judge fuel loads and engine maps. We are still hiding. We have to wait a little longer for the soft tires and the afternoon conditions”, said this Friday morning.

All this, on the second day where a Mercedes was seen with a lot of rear grip problems on the track. That caused a headache for Hamilton in the morning, a driver who was seen battling a jittery car on several occasions. He survived an acceleration scare in turn 1 and other whiplashes on the entrance curve to the finish line. He worked throughout the morning session to correct the adjustments that would solve this problem, but Wolff made it clear that the track conditions this Friday morning, very hot and very windy, were detrimental to them.

“The car was unbalanced this morning, you can tell by the black marks we leave under acceleration. It was a bit hot and we couldn’t find the right set-up. It wasn’t the driver who was driving too much, the car was not giving enough grip to Hamilton at the rear.”directed the Mercedes Principal Team.

“We have to keep pushing, focus on ourselves and stay focused. It is difficult to know where we are now, but we will have a better feeling in the next few days,” he said. Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes director of track engineeringwhich highlights the great improvement that means the W14 is born without the ‘porpoising’ (bounce in a straight line) that affected them so much last year.

“It always takes a few days to discover a new car, but we have ideas where we want to improve the balance. It is reassuring that the W14 has a quieter and more stable platform than the W13. We will work on I think we can catch up with Red Bull and Ferrari. For this we have to do everything possible to find performance for the first race here in a week”, concluded Sholvin.