© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff says at the moment Mercedes can’t match the performance of their rivals, but he believes “there are simple solutions to get the performance back”.
After a bad showing in Friday’s free practice sessions, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was asked if his team can fight for the victory this Sunday.
“As it stands, when we make our assumptions based on the free practice sessions, no,” the Austrian said at the Saturday team principals’ press conference.
“I think Red Bull are in a league of their own, and then there’s a bunch of teams that are in the corridor of fuel weight and engine modes.
“But it’s great to see the teams like [Alfa Romeo] and [Alpine] are right there in the free practice sessions, and this is what I’ve said – the regulations were made in order to bunch the field up, and that’s what’s going to happen.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
Toto was then asked if this means Mercedes is worried about their title chances this year.
“Again, purely based on assumptions, that we’ve seen in terms of pace, I don’t think that we can match the leaders’ performance at the moment.
“I personally believe there are simple solutions to get the performance back, that start to crystallise, and [there are] 23 races.
“Even if you lose a race or two, and you end up outside of the podium, nobody’s protected against DNFs or crashes, and we’ve seen last year they played a big role.
“We will give it whatever we can, bring updates as quickly as we can, understand the car more, and try to find performance,” Wolff concluded.
