‘It’s going to be difficult to catch up,’ Toto Wolff tempers expectations for Mercedes’ expected fightback in 2023

‘It’s going to be difficult to catch up,’ Toto Wolff tempers expectations for Mercedes’ expected fightback in 2023

Mercedes' team principal, Toto Wolff

Expectations at (and for) Mercedes have always been sky-high. The constructors have a history of success in the sport, especially since their re-entry in 2010. From 2014 to 2021 in the hybrid era, under Toto Wolff’s leadership, they won every constructors’ championship. The only championship they missed out on during this period was the drivers’ title in 2021, where Max Verstappen pretty much cut the ground from under Lewis Hamilton’s feet in the season finale.

For 2022, they were still expected to be at or near the top. Even after the practice sessions, people still believed Mercedes were still ‘sandbagging’. However, this was not the case at all. Instead, in Bahrain, they were squarely third-best behind Red Bull and Ferrari. This gap, especially the one to Ferrari, slimmed out during the second half of the season, but they were still mostly a considerable way behind Red Bull. The one exception was Brazil – a weekend they dominated. Unfortunately for them, they could not snatch P2 from Ferrari.

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Once again, for 2023, the public’s expectations are high. They’re Mercedes after all – you reason that they’ve got to recover. There’s a small boost in the form of Red Bull’s cost cap penalty but it’s no guarantee that they will catch up. Toto Wolff knows as much and believes it’s going to be ‘difficult’ to catch up to those aforementioned two great organizations. As per Motorsport.com, he said; “I think we have understood how we fell back, where the shortcomings are, and where we have gaps in understanding.”

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While the team are determined to get back to where they once were, Wolff thinks it’s important to be ‘realistic’: “We have no doubt, when you’re starting behind by half a second, that it’s going to be difficult to catch up to such great organizations like Red Bull, or Ferrari. Now, having said that, we are super determined in doing just that. But we need to set our expectations at a realistic level.”

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Toto Wolff not taking anything for granted

Toto Wolff
Toto Wolff

Mercedes will much closer to the frontrunners at the end of the season (Brazil notwithstanding) which just speaks to their impressive car development. They looked to be out of it at the start of the season but slowly got themselves into the fight again. While they were closer by the end, they were still quite a bit behind Red Bull in particular – and Toto Wolff thinks Mercedes may fare similarly (as compared to RB) as they did towards the tail end of 2022.

The Austrian said: “If we perform in the way we hope, then we’d like to be part of the racing at the very front. I think that would be a starting point. But we don’t take that for granted. It could well be that the gaps are like they were at the end of last season. I think there is so much potential still that within our car, within the concept, the way we drive the car, etc, that maybe our development slope can be steeper in the months to come.”

While the gap to the top was still significant in Abu Dhabi, if the Silver Arrows show a similar development rate as they did in 2022, then they can certainly hope to match Red Bull, at least by the end of the season. They could start much closer as well – but we won’t get any clear marker of their performance until the first qualifying session of the year in Bahrain.

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