Toto Wolff blames Lewis Hamilton’s Miami Quali performance on the W14, calls the car ‘a nasty piece of work’
Toto Wolff is distraught with the performance that W14 is producing during the 2023 F1 season.
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Toto Wolff (Credits: CBS Sport)
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes Team Principal, has mercilessly bashed the W14 after Lewis Hamilton’s disappointing exit from the Q2 session of yesterday’s Miami GP qualifying. He feels it is incredibly hard to comprehend the working of the W14, and that is what infuriates him the most about Mercedes’s 2023 car.
Toto Wolff had much optimism coming into the ongoing campaign, but with Lewis Hamilton’s Q2 exit, it has completely evaporated. While talking about the same after the qualifying session, he said, “You could see in the first sector the car really wasn’t there. (…) I take no enjoyment from finishing sixth. It’s the lack of comprehension of what it is that makes this car such a nasty piece of work.”
The Austrian has made it clear that the W14 is not working as expect,ed and he is not at all pleased with scoring P5 and P6 finishes during the ongoing campaign. Moreover, while Wolff has shown his displeasure with the W14 this year, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have also previously indicated that the W14 is just not good enough.
The Brackley-based team has fallen backward in the pecking order since the dawn of the new regulations, and the way things are panning out for them this year, tough times are ahead for the whole team. During yesterday’s quali session as well, while Hamilton was eliminated in the Q2 session, Russell, on the back of a last-gap effort, was able to make it into Q3.
Toto Wolff’s team has got a lot of work ahead of them
The 2023 Miami Grand Prix is just a few hours away, and with yesterday’s disappointment, Lewis Hamilton will start the race from P13 on the grid. The only positive thing for Mercedes is George Russell’s P6 starting position. While the W14 has not looked strong during qaulifiers this year, it has got a decent pace when it comes to race-trim.
The two Mercedes drivers would be banking on it to move further up the grid during the race. However, Toto Wolff does not want to see his team fighting for top 5 finishes; he wants Mercedes to be a regular challenger for the podium places. If the team is to achieve this objective this year, they have no option but to grind extremely hard in its factories.
As things stand, the W14 lacks raw pace and is nowhere near the might of a team like Red Bull. The RB19 is operating on a whole another level this year, and it is going to be difficult for all the F1 teams to pose a challenge to Max Verstappen and Co. Considering everything, can you see a Mercedes fighting a Red Bull on pure pace in the upcoming races?
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)