© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff says Mercedes is “making really big steps at the moment with our R&D and with our understanding in the [wind] tunnel – and I mean really big steps”.
Mercedes’ performance since the start of the 2023 season hasn’t been what the team expected. However, after the first qualifying session of 2023, Toto Wolff immediately said the team is moving away from its current car concept.
While the Austrian is aware that there is a long way to go before Mercedes can regularly fight the Red Bulls, he says the team is now going in the right direction.
“We’re always looking at the benchmark performance, and that is Verstappen and Perez, and they’re just too far away, so that hasn’t changed,” Wolff said.
“If Max had finished qualifying, the gap would have been even bigger, and we’ve seen that on the long runs, too. So my state of mind hasn’t changed a millimetre just because we are P3 in qualifying.
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“The difference is the trajectory is set now, so it is not anymore these single sessions or a single race, it’s just we are storming full steam ahead now and changing things.”
Wolff goes on to say it is now realistic to believe race wins will eventually be within reach.
“We’re making really big steps at the moment with our R&D and with our understanding in the [wind] tunnel – and I mean really big steps.
“We just needed the confirmation in Bahrain that we got it wrong, and now we have that. That’s why I would never write off anything now.
“Is it realistic with this performance to talk about the world championship? No, it’s not. You’re a fool if you think that way.
“But equally, it’s motor racing and you must never give up. If we continue to do the big steps that we’ve already done in the last 10 days, then I think we will come to a stage where we are really able to race for wins.”
Asked to elaborate on the progress Mercedes has made, Toto said:
“Big steps in relative performance to where we are even now. The kind of gains that are coming in our R&D and then in aero are much bigger than we’ve had over a long time.
“We’ve unlocked some potential because we simply look at things from different angles now, we have a different perspective because of our learnings of the Bahrain test and the Bahrain race.
“So there was no step back, on the contrary, it was immediately two steps forward,” Wolff concluded.
