© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Toto Wolff says the Mercedes W15 “had some real performance” at Suzuka, and while “that is not reflected in the result”, it “definitely will be in the short-term future”.
Looking at the results of the Japanese Grand Prix, the race was far from a success for Mercedes.
However, although they got only P7 and P9, team boss Toto Wolff says the team has made important breakthroughs with their car.
“The result is really bad,” the Austrian told Channel 4.
“Qualifying and race same result. But it was testing at the moment.
“We’re in a position that we’re fourth in the championship and lots of room to the back and we are orientating ourselves forward and that’s why we need this mileage to understand.
“And this week it was really positive. We changed the car upside down on what we’re doing to it and we had some real performance.
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“Suzuka last year was among our worst tracks. We were pretty close to the frontrunners in qualifying and then second and third stint today, the moment we decided it was a two-stop we were very competitive and the first stint was atrocious.
“So in summary, good learning, really bad on the final points table.”
Toto added he believes Mercedes’ progress will soon be noticeable in the results.
“We had a double DNF in the last race [Australia] and that’s not going to reflect well on the points. But I think our battle is with McLaren. Hopefully we can catch back up to Ferrari.
“And this is just a constant process now that I think we’ve turned the page I believe in how we analyse the car, how we develop it, how we’re setting it up.
“That is not reflected in the result this weekend, but definitely will be in the short-term future,” Wolff concluded.
