© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff says he is “surprised in a way” by Mercedes’ lack of performance, so now they “just need to understand and learn from there on”.
Mercedes has topped the times at the 2022 Barcelona Pre-Season Track Session, but once the team arrived in Bahrain for the pre-season test, it was another story.
At the test the team has introduced a radical change to their sidepods concept, but so far their car seems to be underperforming.
At the Saturday team principals’ press conference Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said the team needs to look at every part of the car and find possible improvements.
“We need to look at every single area on the car – aero, weight, power unit – all of that,” the Austrian explained.
“In Formula 1 there is never one solution. But I think there is low-hanging fruit that we need to tackle for the next races which will improve our overall performance.
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
“And then there’s more complex things and we are tackling each of those.”
Wolff admits the team seems to have been going in the wrong direction since the first test in Barcelona.
“We started the season well in Barcelona and then went backwards from there on. So now it’s about really understanding.
“Whatever we do now is, in a way, a process. We can do things quickly and we can do more sophisticated and profound changes over the mid-term and this is what we’re aiming to do.”
Asked if he was surprised by Mercedes’ performance Toto said:
“I’m surprised in a way, yes, because you set the expectations and so far we couldn’t reach them. But I guess you just need to understand and learn from there on.
“As I always say, every season the points go to zero and particularly in a season where the regs have changed considerably, you have no entitlement to whatsoever performance.
“Now we have to understand better in qualifying and in the race tomorrow, we don’t know where we stand.
“And if it’s not good enough, then this team have proved that we can just grind ourselves out of non-performance.”
As for who the favourites are for this Sunday, Toto thinks Red Bull is ahead of everyone at the moment.
“I think Red Bull is in a league of their own and then there’s a bunch of teams that are within a corridor of fuel weight and an engine modes,” concluded Wolff.
