© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says he “had that feeling on the last weekend that there is a good car”, and he hasn’t “lost that feeling”.
Mercedes had a difficult Australian Grand Prix weekend, but team boss Toto Wolff says the struggles the team experienced in the first three races have helped them eliminate many potential causes for the W15’s issues.
However, the team is still not able to pinpoint the exact cause of these issues.
“When I look at the positives, I think we took many potential root causes out of the equation,” the Austrian said after the race.
“We weren’t sure about our suspension; we weren’t sure about the stiffness of our gearbox carrier, we had a vibrating steering rack, and all of those things have disappeared.
“But, fundamentally, whatever we see in the tunnel doesn’t correlate with what’s happening on the track.
“It is not a single person that says, I would interpret that data in this way and because of dogmatism, we’re not making any progress.
“I don’t see dogmatism. I see an open environment where people share, where people take themselves by the nose and say, maybe in my area we’re making mistakes.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
Toto added, the issues are not down to any deficits the team has in their organizational structure or facilities, but purely has to do with the car itself.
“It’s probably so tough in my career, in everything I’ve done before, be in finance, in investments, that you know which screws to turn and you know sometimes it takes time because, back in my Williams days I knew what was missing.
“But here I don’t think we’re missing something. It is just a complication of what’s happening with the car that we can’t see. And it’s like an on-off switch.
“And then you see the progress that McLaren and Ferrari have made and this is the difference between last year and this year. This was a pretty good weekend for us last year.
“I just saw a clip before because I forgot about past races we were leading at the beginning 1 and 2. So, you know, we’ve got to really dig deep because it is brutally painful.”
Asked whether Mercedes has a lack of understanding of the current technical regulations, Toto said:
“The performance of the car is made by some fundamentals and then some variables.
“And I think in the variables is all of the aerodynamics effect on the car, the mechanical adjustments that we make.
“But fundamentally the basic performance is made in a factory. And then you have a certain amount of tools that you can dial on track to make it better or worse.”
Ultimately, Wolff still believes Mercedes has a fundamentally good car, the team just has to extract its full performance.
“I had that feeling on the last weekend that there is a good car. I haven’t lost that feeling that there is a good car.
“Because there are sessions throughout the weekend and also the last two ones where we are absolutely right up there in terms of performance. And then we lose it again.
“P3 within tenths of everybody else. Quali? Seven. And then race pace was never there this weekend.
“You could see that McLaren and Ferrari were going seven, eight-tenths quicker on Friday already and we had no answer to that,” he concluded.
