Mercedes wants to do like Aston Martin

Mercedes He has to make a decision for this year: Continue with his dangerous car concept from 2022, which at the beginning of the course gave them a lot of problems, or bet on a completely different car philosophy and present a completely new single-seater for 2023. Doubt flew at the factory Brackley for many months. The presentation of a new car in 2023 could mean the loss of a school year compared to all its rivals and perhaps be discarded in 2023 as the car changes. And finally, after the great improvement they achieved in their 2022 concept in the second part of the season, they chose to keep the same concept and study it in detail to eliminate all its weaknesses. However, that position seems to be a mistake. AND Aston Martin, which is also known by the head of Mercedes, Toto Wolffhas shown that taking that step of completely replacing the car may be the right path.

That’s why now Mercedes he’ll consider doing like Aston Martin and betting on another car from now on. The step forward made by the green square could serve as an example for them to take that step they didn’t want to take with the first car this year, the W14. “What Aston Martin has done is a great inspiration for us, because we’ve seen them go from two seconds from the lead to being the second fastest team. And we’re quite the opposite.”commented Wolff within F1 Bahrain GP.

On Friday, Lewis Hamilton was already complaining about the big gap with Red Bull and made it clear that in the concept car it was very difficult to be there. On Saturday, his classification of half a second changed his speech, hoping he could make the necessary steps to get to the top with that car. But on Sunday, the race again insisted Lewis needed a change of concept.

“The positive from the weekend is that I still have what it takes to drive and compete. We have great reliability and we have no bounce. But it’s the same car as last year and it’s still slow, it’s not fast and you have to turn it around,” he said. In addition, he criticized the team for not listening to him about what was exposed he throughout 2022 what he likes and dislikes about the behavior of his new car.

Now, after the first race of the season, due to budget constraints, the team must make a decision on where to go. They can’t waste money on two different developments because they will exceed that limit. And despite the fact that the total course change that has already begun is very complicated, they have to do it. Wolff admits having to bet on change. “It’s very difficult, but it’s what we have to do. Right now we have no choice.”

“I’m not sure that the spending limit puts limits on the position we are in, but we have to decide which direction we are going to go and put all the resources there. We will continue to develop the car, the question is what car ,” he added. about.

“I don’t think this package will be competitive eventually,” he said in Bahrain.

“We will address it right away, because if you look at where we were at the end of last year, we seem to have caught up…it was just a matter of tracks that were right for us and tracks that weren’t. Now it seems like we have almost doubled or tripled the difference with Red Bull. That’s what we have to study”, commented Toto, very disappointed with the start of Mercedes, admitting the step back.

“The one-lap pace is still good, but in the race we saw the consequences. To put it clearly: we lacked downforce, the tire slipped and we went backwards,” he clarified.

they are wrong

“We also gave our best during the winter and now we just have to regroup, sit down with the engineers and decide what direction of development we want to go in. to be competitive to win races”, said Wolff, without rejecting the idea of ​​being able to fight at the top for the rest of the course if they take the appropriate steps. like last year you get podiums and eventually get there. I’m sure we can win races this season, but it’s really in the medium and long term that we have to see what decisions you have to make.

“We hit our targets,” he said, referring to eliminating the car’s bouncing problems and lack of straight-line speed. But Wolff realized that wasn’t enough: “That’s why we gave him the best chance. And the moment came and the clock went out and showed us that it was not enough. We don’t have enough downforce and we have to find solutions to fix it.”

Everything seems to indicate that Mercedes will opt for a drastic change and will do so soon, more so than the technical director of the team, Mike Elliott, who assured that Mercedes will wait to analyze the performance of the car in the next races. to decide whether to change it or not. It seems that this decision will be made in the short term to buy time.

Of course, Wolff wants to make it clear that he does not blame any of his engineers and that he continues to credit them for all the success achieved since the beginning of the hybrid era. A team doesn’t forget to build fast cars overnight.

“In this team we blame the problem and not the person. And in the end I have the responsibility, so if I want to do something, I would have to fire myself. We have all the ingredients to be successful. The people and the infrastructure won eight straight championships and we messed up last year. We thought we could fix it by keeping this concept car and it didn’t work out. So we just have to shift our focus to what we think might be the right direction, what we’re missing.”