Toto Wolff says he is wary of Mercedes’ prospects heading to the Monaco Grand Prix after its struggles at the event 12 months ago.
Mercedes picked up four successive wins at the event from 2013 to 2016 as Nico Rosberg’s hat-trick was followed by Lewis Hamilton’s triumph in wet/dry conditions.
But last year Ferrari dominated proceedings to convert a front-row lockout into a 1-2 finish, while Valtteri Bottas trailed home fourth, with Lewis Hamilton only seventh after getting knocked out in Q2.
It is the only race across the past two years that has failed to have a Mercedes representative on the podium and Wolff admitted to concern as the team prepares to return to the event.
“Bloody worried!” joked Wolff when asked about Monaco. “We’ve seen in the last years that there was always tracks that suited us well and some that we weren't perfect on for whatever reason.
“It’s very difficult to undo the DNA of a car and Monaco, Budapest, Singapore were all tracks where we underperformed a lot last year. It’s a great challenge for us to come back this year,
“It’s a difficult one. Why our car doesn’t like to be quick around the corners in Monaco we haven’t found out yet.
“We know what went wrong last year but as much as I’m overwhelmed with the victory [in Spain] my mind was already in Monaco and I remember Sunday night wasn’t as pleasant last year.”
Hamilton, though, played down concerns over Monaco and stressed that the most important aspect is to focus on extracting the maximum points possible from the available pace.
“Naturally for Toto, his job is to worry, he is the team leader, he will be thinking which department can he go to for that push to make sure we get the right supplies for the test or the next race,” he said. “My job is not to worry so much but rather prepare and make sure that I extract everything from my engineers.
"Make sure that I come their fit and focused and what will be, will be. “We know it is probably going to be a difficult weekend and the others could be quicker than us potentially but we might be surprised or we might not be.
“What we do is prepare ourselves the best we can and arrive, take it how we are faced with whatever we are faced with. We’ll take it.
“As you can see this year you can still get great points in races that you don’t win and it is a long way to go still so we will be focused on getting the maximum from the weekend regardless of whether we are fastest or not.”
