© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff says Mercedes’ “experiments have worked” and they now “have a clear direction, even though the qualifying and race result doesn’t reflect it at all”.
With P7 and P9, the Japanese Grand Prix seems to have been a disappointing race for Mercedes, but team boss Toto Wolff says differently.
The Austrian said the team’s race was hindered by an “atrocious” first stint, but later the car was in a much better spot.
“We need to analyse why that is, as the second and third stints were very good,” Toto said.
“That is the positive that we take from the race. It is live testing now for us. We’ve been on the back foot and now we’ve taken a different direction, and I think this is happening.”
He added the team is convinced they are now moving in the right direction.
“It was definitely much better, and there is lots more data that points us in the right direction, even if it’s not reflected in the result.
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“I think I can’t wait to go racing in Shanghai. We just need to have a better start to the weekend.
“Some of the proof of concept that we’ve done here, will be on the car. And then [we will] see what we can do in Shanghai.
“The experiments have worked. I think what I said, we have a clear direction, even though the qualifying and race result doesn’t reflect it at all.
“We’ve aimed for a one-stop. And then we found out it wasn’t possible. We’ve probably over-managed the tyres.
“But the moment we picked up the speed on the similar stint lengths like the others, we were competitive,” Wolff concluded.
