18/03/2023
NEWS STORY
Mercedes boss says improvements to the W13 throughout 2022, led to a "perfect storm"
While George Russell has described his victory in Brazil last year as taking Mercedes down the wrong path, in terms of the concept of the car being carried over, Toto Wolff claims the improvements made to the W13 over the course of the season created a "perfect storm".
"We had the perfect storm last year because the car got better and better and then you start to question the concept of the car less than you probably should," admitted the Austrian.
"Now we have to prove that we're not happy where we've landed, we're overall not happy about the amount of downforce, the mechanical balance, I mean all of it, it never comes alone."
Asked if recent comments about changing the concept effectively means a new chassis, he replied: "No, that's out of the question that you change the chassis, because simply there is not enough budget in the cost cap.
"But changing the way the aerodynamics work and bodywork is perfectly within the scope," he added.
Referring to the pow-wow held at Brackley this week, which saw cards laid on the table and, understandably, got quite heated, he said: "These meetings are giving us more clarity, and more focus where we need to tackle in order to turn this around quickly.
"Over these 10 years we have created a culture which is around tough love," he added. "We were able to have conversations that are maybe in some other groups or companies or teams out of the ordinary, but in our team we are just able to confront each other with the reality. And the reality is always based on our own expectations of our own performances and now we can say, you know we got it wrong last year and this is where it was and we really continue to push hard to get the car to a better place.
"At the end of the season, we were able to win a Grand Prix and we were in a way respectable considering where we started the year. So going into 2023, the expectations were, we're going to close the gap more and we're going to be able to win more races and hopefully fight for a championship and that hasn't happened and therefore, after Bahrain, this is the status quo. And it will be the status quo in Jeddah because there ain't no miracles in the sport and we're just honest about it. And we take the responsibility and accountability. I hate the results, because of what we all expected from ourselves, and so does everybody else in the team."
"We'd really tried hard to make it work," he said of the concept, "because the data that we have extrapolated showed us that this works. And we were proven wrong, very simply.
"You can see that the two quickest cars, including the Ferraris - the three quickest cars - that have a similar concept of how they generate performance, and it's very different to ours.
"At a certain stage we came to the conclusion, we got this wrong. Simply, we got it wrong. Why we got it wrong, we're still analysing because we follow data and we followed what simulations tell us, in that case we were misguided by those data. And all of us involved in the decision-making process came to the conclusion well, we can't continue that way. We really tried to stick to it and we don't want to, under any circumstance, run in a one-way street saying, 'we're going to make this work no matter what', because it doesn't work. And I don't want to lose more time so my colleagues, so don't want my colleagues as well."
In terms of goals for the remainder of the season - after just one race!! - he admitted: "The goals? I'd like to win every race starting Sunday but that's not realistic.
"The goals are that based on the understanding that we have now, that over the next iterations of updates and learning, we can shave off a lot of performance deficit because now we know and now we have all taken a decision in which direction to go."
Lewis Hamilton has already ruled out the idea of a new car, citing the limitations of the budget cap, consequently Wolff was asked if he now sees the cap as a bad thing.
"I think the budget cap, in a way, has more positives than negatives," he said. "But obviously, if you're on the back foot, like we are at the moment, it doesn't allow you to build a second chassis.
"I think our fundamental problem is not building a second chassis or throwing stuff at the car," he admitted. "It's more about a direction that we've taken that's wrong. And I think if we... when we change it now, that's going to be limited by the budget cap, but not in the way that you would expect, like we're not able to develop. We're still able to develop but it will mean we need to spend time on a new concept, on new ideas, and we need to discontinue the old one.
"So in the short term, it could mean you make a step back before making two forward, but these are the rules. They have been introduced exactly for the reason to put the field stronger together, which will eventually happen.
"I mean, Red Bull is showing us that if you do a good job you can outperform everybody else. But for us, these are the rules and we need to still do a better job."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Jeddah here.