© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
At the beginning of the 2021 season, Mercedes is trailing behind Red Bull in terms of performance. Toto Wolff explains how the team will manage its car development.
Formula 1 will be introducing a big regulations change in 2022, so teams will want to focus on developing next year’s car as soon as possible. However, it could come at the expense of their current cars.
“I think this whole concept of ‘let’s switch off in order to get out of the blocks faster the following year’ is a bit of a tricky call,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff explains.
“I think you just need to optimise every season and particularly with next year’s regulatory change.
“It’s difficult to balance because we don’t want to lose this year but we don’t want to lose next year either and starting late for next year means that you could potentially run behind the leaders for quite a while and not only a year.
“The answer is not trivial.”
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However, the Austrian insist the team must work to improve their current car so that they can challenge Red Bull throughout the season.
“It is very difficult to really get it right and in a way, you can’t sacrifice 2021 in the hope of having a more competitive race car and power unit next year. That is not how it works.
“I think everybody will be balancing their resource between the 2021 car and the 2022 car including the power units and we are the same.
“I guess at the moment we need to keep some emphasis on this year’s project because we are behind,” concluded Wolff.
