Toto Wolff has hinted that the Mercedes Formula 1 team will rethink developing its car by taking inspiration from Red Bull.
His comments come after McLaren’s seismic performance during qualifying at the British Grand Prix, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri taking second and third respectively.
McLaren introduced a major upgrade in Austria last time out and continued development at Silverstone, upgrading components including its floor and sidepods.
After qualifying, Lewis Hamilton stated that the MCL60 looks “very, very similar” to the dominant 2023 Red Bull F1 challenger.
Its performance has caught the attention of the paddock, given it started the 2023 campaign competing towards the rear of the field.
Wolff confirmed that Mercedes already looked at implementing Red Bull ideas onto its car, but suggested it may have to revisit the idea in light of McLaren’s jump up the order.
“I think from what you see from the outside, which is only half of the information, is that the car looks like a Red Bull,” Wolff said.
“As a matter of fact, to be honest, it doesn’t matter, because only the stopwatch counts.
“This is what I guess Lewis was referring to, because this design seems to be a good direction.
“But it is easier said than done and each of us had bodywork that looked like the Red Bull in the [wind] tunnel and it didn’t come in up in performance.
“So you have got to leave no stone unturned and maybe do it again because another team has just found a second in performance.”
At the start of the season, Aston Martin made a sizeable leap up the pecking order and scored a series of podiums in the opening rounds.
With McLaren being the latest midfield team to show notable gains, Wolff says that Mercedes can be inspired by their progress.
“I think it is very encouraging to see that Aston Martin found massive chunks of lap time from last year to this year, and in the same way you see in the season McLaren doing that,” he said.
“That is something that you need to take your hat off too, if we see that consolidating, and certainly for us it is a good example of how you can turn around things.”
Clearly the Red Bull shape does “come up in performance” as RB themselves ably demonstrate. It’s only MB that don’t seem to understand how it works.