‘Next year we are back,’ Toto Wolff backs Mercedes to come back from a disappointing 2022 season
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Toto Wolff
2022 was the first time since 2014 that Mercedes did not have the ‘dominant car’ and did not win the Constructor’s championship. Instead, they only won one race in the season, in Brazil, a week ago. The rest of the year, they spent fighting for podiums, with them being ‘gifted’ some in the first part of the season. But since the summer break, they were genuine competitors to Ferrari.
They even had a chance to jump them in the championship standings at Abu Dhabi – which would be a surprise to anyone if you had told them this after the first three races. However, they fell short, and were squarely third fastest again, which means they couldn’t take P2 in the championship. There was more ‘salt in the wound’, as with Lewis Hamilton they suffered their first mechanical retirement of the season.
Speaking to Sky Sports, team principal Toto Wolff called 2022 a ‘character-building season’: “First of all, we’re gonna put these cars in reception at Braxley and in Brixworth to remind us every single day how difficult it can be. But thank you everyone, this is a character-building season.” he said, as per CRASH.
But he also stated that in 2023, Mercedes will be back: “Not a blip for a race but a full season. You keep pushing so hard, the engine came along really well and I’m proud of what we achieved there. On the chassis side there were more bad moments than good ones but the good ones were spectacular like a week ago. It made us feel how good it can be and now we’re just pushing forward for next year. It’s raw, it’s bad and it’s okay to feel like this but next year we are back.”
Toto Wolff: Mercedes’ dismal Abu Dhabi showing a ‘precise summary of the season’
Apart from a couple of races, Mercedes have been unable to even fight for victory. Brazil was quite easily the highlight of their season, as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished 1-2, but apart from that, it was mostly podiums they were in the fight for, sometimes, not even that. Toto Wolff feels that Abu Dhabi summed up their season:
“That was really not good. All the mistakes you can make. A car that was not at the pace it should have been. Third-quickest today. One breaking down and one running out of tyres. A precise summary of the season.” adding that they ‘cooked the tyres’ after the first few laps that they attacked strong in, but then, the front-right gave up, to which he said: “Maybe that’s something we should have predicted.”
According to Wolff, Mercedes knew that Abu Dhabi was going to be a ‘difficult one’ for the car. As for Brazil, he said it was ‘spectacular’ how they dominated from beginning to end, and he is pleased that the team were able to ‘at least tick the box’ with a race win.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)