© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says Red Bull has “an overall performance advantage”, but warns the battle for the 2021 championship is “so far from over”.
After the Austrian Grand Prix Mercedes sits 44 points behind Red Bull in the championship standings, while Lewis Hamilton has a 32 points deficit to Max Verstappen.
Toto Wolff acknowledges that his team is now firmly on the back foot.
“We are fighting a tough battle at the moment, against all odds as it stands,” the Austrian said.
“It is against the odds for us now, and that’s clear because they have an overall performance advantage.
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“All these years I tried to keep our feet on the ground by not being carried away with performance, and now I need to do the opposite.”
However, Wolff is not counting his team out of the championship battle.
“There are 13 or 14 races to go, we are one DNF [retirement] away from Red Bull, no more, and we’ve lost more points than we should have lost to our own mistakes … we need to just get our act together overall.
“This is so far from over … we just need to up our game, make less mistakes and continue to understand the car better and then we are still massively and absolutely in the hunt,” concluded Mercedes’ team boss.
