“Red Bull are the benchmark,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff acknowledges team struggling compared to rivals

Mercedes’s F1 Team Principal and CEO, Toto Wolff has led his team to achieve absolute dominance in the sport since he joined them in 2014. With him, the Silver Arrows have achieved 8 consecutive constructors’ championship titles. But since the start of the 2022 season, the champions have suffered their worst start to a season in recent years.

Mercedes have suffered a poor start and has been struggling to find the pace. The W13 has suffered from porpoising and this has made the car unstable in the straights finding itself behind mid-field cars and backmarkers. Mercedes-powered teams have also been struggling for straight-line speed at times compared to those running Ferrari and Red Bull-badged power units. 

And Mercedes Team Principal agrees that their rivals have gotten the better of them with respect to adapting to the new regulations. The Austrian says Red Bull is the benchmark team and Silver Arrows seem to be lacking answers which other teams had cracked back in February.

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Toto Wolff: “Step by step we are getting closer to a solution”

Toto Wolff says Mercedes did not expect Porpoising to be such a major problem for the team. Mercedes’s Team Principal said to Krone Zeitung the team is still learning the flaws and how to get the best out of W13. But at the moment their 2021 title rivals Red Bull have a better car than them.

Wolff said, “I assume that we can still win this year, but that will not happen by itself. We have to fight for it. Right now both Red Bull and Ferrari are ahead of us, so it will be difficult to overtake them. We know where the bar is. If Red Bull can save some weight, then they are the benchmark for us.”

He added, “My feeling is that it will be very tough from a sporting point of view, but we can learn a lot from this. We are going to try a few things again in Melbourne, but we do not expect that we will suddenly be a second faster than before. Step by step we are getting closer to a solution, but of course, the competition is not standing still. They already understood this problem in February.”

Wolff confirmed that Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are making an “important contribution” to Mercedes’ efforts. The Team are 40 points behind Ferrari in the Constructors Championship in 2nd place. 

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