Toto Wolff says Mercedes needs to find a way to overcome Ferrari’s ‘crushing’ speed, but believes its own focus on 2020 has slightly distorted matters.
Ferrari has held an advantage at power-heavy circuits for much of the year but since the summer break has had the fastest package at each venue.
It won from pole position in Belgium, Italy and Singapore, though Mercedes turned the tables in race trim in Russia courtesy of the Virtual Safety Car timing.
“I think we had situations where Ferrari was very strong in the last years but at the moment they just crush everybody with their straight-line speed so it is very difficult to compensate that around the track,” said Wolff.
“This is a situation that we need to overcome.
“I think we need to look at all areas of the engine to see if there is some innovation that we should have spotted.
“Certainly in terms of internal combustion gains and thermal efficiency gains you can take them year to year but we are speaking not about several percent but less than one percent.
“That is something that you can physically extract year on year development with the mature regulations that we have now which is probably even less so you need to be clever and with all the other bits in the engine while they are at 100% with the regulations.”
Wolff nonetheless feels that Mercedes’ focus on 2020 – having opened a sizeable advantage in both championships – will facilitate its progress long-term.
“A championship is a management of your point-scoring ability throughout the year and we could have decided a while ago to push throughout until the end and compromise next year but we didn’t do it,” he said.
“You’ve got to be careful. It is always a management and I am sure they [Ferrari] had dropped the ball a few times at the beginning of the season but they are getting there now and you can see four races in a row where they were really strong and they are the reference lap time-wise.
“Bearing in mind we are on the backfoot power-wise at the moment but at the same time looking to next year and saying where can we increase our game and where can we get better to have a strong car and strong power next year.”
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