© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Sky Sports analyst Ted Kravitz says a plan B car “wasn’t in the pipeline” for Mercedes, but Toto Wolff will now “task and inspire his team to build a new car”.
Ahead of the 2023 season, Sky Sports analyst Ted Kravitz said Mercedes had a ‘plan B’ car in development in case the team’s current concept turned out to be a failure.
Then, ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, this theory was shot down by both team boss Toto Wolff, and the team’s Technical Director Mike Elliott.
However, after Mercedes’ subpar performance in qualifying, Wolff immediately said the team’s current car concept is not going to work.
Then, after the race, Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin promised “bigger departures and more radical changes”, indicating that the team will definitely move away from its current car concept.
Now, Ted Kravitz says a ‘plan B’ car is again a thing for Mercedes.
“Are we seeing a team in existential re-evaluating in their own belief in their abilities?” the Briton said.
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“An abandonment of everything they have worked so hard on for the past seven or eight months?
“They are searching for a new concept that the boss is demanding. Toto is demanding a new concept from his designers and engineers. What will the response be?
“I don’t think Lewis [Hamilton] is writing it off mentally now. I don’t think he can. How could he? He is encouraging the team to get on with it.
“Toto will task and inspire his team to build a new car. A plan B wasn’t in the pipeline, but Wolff has now tasked his team with a plan B.
“Toto said rather dismissively: ‘I won’t get too excited about a three tenths of a second upgrade coming in Imola.
“He’s the boss, he’s going to get a plan B,” Kravitz concluded.
