10/03/2023
NEWS STORY
Following Toto Wolff's shock admission at the weekend, Mercedes is left wondering exactly which car it is to develop.
It's fair to say that Wolff's admission at the weekend, after just one race, that Mercedes has got it all wrong and effectively has to return to the drawing board, was seismic, sending shockwaves through the paddock and beyond.
However, the big question is, in returning to the drawing board does the team start work on a B-car, despite the obvious restrictions imposed by the budget cap, as pointed out by Lewis Hamilton, or carry out a top to bottom overhaul of what it already has?
In others words, which car is Mercedes going to work on?
"It is extremely difficult to catch up such an advantage, but it is what we have to do," admits the Austrian. "We have no choice.
"I am not sure the budget cap gives you constraints in the position where we are," he continues, "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..." he adds, "the question is just which car?"
"We will tackle it straight away because, when you look at where we were at the end of the (2022) 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.
"This is what we need to look at, 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," he admits, "because they came back from two seconds off the pace to being second-quickest team.
"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 backwards."
Of course, this isn't the work of the moment, and will require everyone in the team to work towards a solution... the last thing needed being criticism or 'I told you so' claims from the drivers.
"The drivers are fully aware," says Wolff. "We are speaking about it openly in the whole team. Everyone is aware, this is not a matter of finding 0.3 seconds and polishing the car up. This is a matter of serious performance we need to find to put us back in a position to fight for race wins and championships."