Toto Wolff has erred on the side of caution by admitting that Mercedes may continue to lag behind Ferrari and Red Bull at the start of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
Mercedes suffered the embarrassment of their worst season since 2012 last year as they dropped to third in the Constructors’ Championship and finished over 200 points behind the World Championship winning Red Bull outfit.
The Silver Arrows’ woes were encapsulated by registering only a solitary pole position and victory across the 22-round calendar, as it spent the entirety of the year fighting to recover from a surprisingly stuttering start to the new cycle of regulations introduced for 2022.
While most teams were caught out by the porpoising phenomenon, Mercedes suffered more than most and the excessive bouncing plagued their ability to run the car closer to the ground to extract the maximum underlying downforce they believed the car inherited.
Eventually, the engineers would get on top of the problem as the season progressed, but further troubles would set Mercedes back and into a position that meant they were unable to ever consistently unlock the full potential of the W13 and become a challenger to the dominant Max Verstappen-Red Bull combination.
Nevertheless, despite their extensive struggles with the previous car, Wolff is optimistic that Mercedes are in a much stronger place to process the lessons learnt from last season’s hardships and apply the knowledge they obtained to the development of their next car for this season.
“I think we have understood how we fell back, where the shortcomings are, and where we have gaps in understanding,” Wolff said.
“We’re working hard on putting a car on the ground that has addressed all of that. But we will only see when starting testing whether we have unlocked the potential that we believe has always been in the car.”
Although Mercedes showed glimpses of what their unique zero sidepod package was capable of by securing a relatively comfortable 1-2 finish at the penultimate round in Brazil, their return to a position of inferiority a round later in Abu Dhabi showcased that a considerable deficit remains to be bridged before they can become a serious threat.
While many have backed the eight-time world champions to overcome their most recent troublesome campaign, Wolff has warned that closing the seismic gap that existed between them and the two teams classified above them in the standings in Abu Dhabi could be one that proves too insurmountable over the winter period alone.
“We have no doubt, when you’re starting behind by half a second, that it’s going to be difficult to catch up to such great organisations like Red Bull, or Ferrari,” he said.
“Now, having said that, we are super determined in doing just that. But we need to set our expectations at a realistic level.
“If we perform in the way we hope, then we’d like to be part of the racing at the very front. I think that would be a starting point.
“But we don’t take that for granted. It could well be that the gaps are like they were at the end of last season.”
Nevertheless, even accounting for the distinct possibility that the German manufacturer remains third in the pecking order once the season gets underway in Bahrain, Wolff remains fairly confident that Mercedes’ ambitious interpretation of the regulations could yet offer them greater scope for development down the line.
“I think there is so much potential still within our car, within the concept, the way we drive the car, etc, that maybe our development slope can be steeper in the months to come.”
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