Toto Wolff has insisted that Mercedes is not playing mind games by repeatedly playing down its pace, despite taking four straight 1-2s in 2019, pointing to the performance displayed by opponents.
Mercedes believed pre-season that it was on par with, or slightly behind, rivals Ferrari based on pre-season data, but has gone on to record four 1-2 finishes.
It has also locked out the front-row of the grid at three of the first four events, missing out only in Bahrain, where Charles Leclerc dominated until suffering an engine glitch.
“I’m sitting here [in Azerbaijan] and looking like appearing to be — what can I say? We are not talking ourselves down,” said Wolff.
“It is that we see a strong Ferrari on Friday and on Saturday, and I still believe that Charles was probably the fastest man on track [in Azerbaijan], but like in Bahrain, it didn’t come together.
“You can say now, ‘Yeah, stop saying these things — it’s the fourth one-two in a row’, but it is still very much our mindset.
“We still believe that there are so many things we need to understand better and improve.”
Wolff stressed that Mercedes owes its results not just due to pure pace but also the slick nature of the team.
“Even in the race [in Azerbaijan] at times [Pierre] Gasly and [Max] Verstappen were the quickest and then it was us again,” he said.
“Then in the beginning it was Charles who was flying on the Mediums. So I think that what we did in the first races was put all the things together.
“The team didn’t do any mistakes, the strategy calls were right, the drivers didn’t put a foot wrong, and that made us win the first four races.
“Then when you look at the other side, they had more problems.”
Mercedes holds a 74-point advantage in the Constructors’ Championship.
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