© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Toto Wolff says being behind their rivals in terms of pace right now, allows Mercedes to “experiment more” and treat races as extended tests.
Mercedes is facing a difficult start to the 2022 season, with their car not being on par with their rivals’ at the moment.
However, team boss Toto Wolff reveals this position allowed Mercedes to “experiment more” at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
“In a way it was a new situation for all of us because we are somewhere in a no man’s land between P3/P4 and P6,” the Austrian said after the race.
“Therefore you can experiment more, and I think the experiment with the hard tyres was worth it.
“Very different to all the other strategies of the front runners and obviously didn’t work at all. So more mileage, more laps, more learning.”
According to Wolff, Mercedes is the third quickest car on the grid, at the moment.
“Fifth and sixth would have been the reflection where we are. I think we were competitive on the first few laps on the soft tyre and we were able to hold on, if not be faster, than some of the guys in front. But we had more deg.
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“Nevertheless, it was a good, useful test for us. We tried the hard tyre, which obviously wasn’t great.
“We lost a second a lap and also on the medium, we weren’t really able to extract performance so there’s some really good learning.
“There’s so many areas we just need to improve in order to climb back to race with the guys in front.”
As Mercedes is still trying to solve their ‘porpoising’ issues, they are not able to optimise their car in other areas. Therefore, Wolff says bringing on new parts is not going to be the solution.
“I think more than then really bringing parts, it’s understanding how we can unleash the performance that we believe to be in the car- or that we hope to be in the car.
“Before throwing bits at it in terms of performance, this is where I would see it,” concluded Mercedes’ team boss.
