Toto Wolff reveals Mercedes are facing a dilemma regarding ‘car concept’

Toto Wolff wants the Mercedes F1 Team to decide on a car concept in order to challenge the front runners in F1.

Toto Wolff

Toto Wolff, the Mercedes Team Principal, has made it known that his team needs to decide urgently on the car concept. Mercedes struggled in comparison to the front runners at the Bahrain GP. Keeping in view, how the race panned out for the Brackley-based Wolff wants a quick decision on the car concept.

During the 2022 season, the Mercedes team’s slim side pod design did not bring the kind of fruits the team was hoping for. Moreover, the W13 had a lot of porpoising issues and was extremely slow. The same seemed to have happened after the 2023 Bahrain GP, barring the porpoising. While they have managed to get a handle on last year’s main issue, the W14 is still extremely slow with its narrow side pod design.

Wolff was recently asked to talk about the potential of designing a new car concept under the prevailing budget cap restrictions. While responding, he said, “It is extremely difficult to catch up to such an advantage, but it is what we have to do. We have no choice. I am not sure the budget cap gives you constraints in the position where we are, but we do need to decide which direction we are going in and put all the resources behind it. We are still developing one car. The question is just which car.”

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Toto Wolff wants a decision on the car concept at the Mercedes F1 Team as quickly as possible. He is aware of the gap to the lights of Red Bull and wants a decision so that all the resources can be put in one direction. However, taking into account the deficit that Mercedes had to the Milton-Keynes-based team in Bahrain, whatever car concept Mercedes decide on might not be enough.

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Toto Wolff feels upgrades for W14 will not bring significant improvement

Toto Wolff has been associated with F1 for many years and knows how difficult it is to change the concept of a car mid-season. Moreover, while there are upgrades coming for the current package at Imola, the German is not too confident as he feels it would not be enough to challenge the front runners. The upgrades are expected to bring an improvement of only about three-tenths.

This is one of the main reasons why Wolff wants a quick decision, “We will tackle it straight away because when you look at where we were at the end of the season, where it seemed like we caught up a lot and it was just a matter of which circuits suited us and which not, it seems like we almost doubled if not tripled the gap to Red Bull.”

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“Everything in between – the Ferrari, the Aston – that’s just a sideshow. Having said that, what Aston Martin was able to achieve is a good inspiration because they came back from two seconds off the pace to being the second-quickest team. And with us everything is bad. The single-lap pace is still good but in the race, we saw the consequences. To put it bluntly, we are lacking downforce, sliding the tyres, and going backward.”

Toto Wolff has given a damning verdict on the state of things at Mercedes this year. However, despite the trouble, he wants his team to look at the Aston Martin F1 Team who has shown tremendous improvement with its car this year. He wants his crew to take inspiration from them and do their best in improving the W14. Considering everything that has happened in the 2023 F1 season so far, would it be possible for Mercedes to pose a challenge at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit? Would Lewis Hamilton and George Russell be seen locking horns with Max Verstappen and Co. at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix?