Toto Wolff has revealed a shift in his perspective amidst Mercedes’ current struggles to regain momentum in Formula 1.
Despite overhauling their F1 car for the 2024 season following two challenging years, Mercedes has encountered another rough start to the campaign, marked by lackluster showings in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have yet to make a significant impact, with Russell’s fifth-place finish in Bahrain representing the team’s best result thus far.
Nevertheless, Wolff maintains unwavering confidence, asserting that he is “100%” certain that Mercedes has the capability and determination to reverse their fortunes.
Wolff elaborated; “I’ve changed my mindset, I don’t think that additional pressure on all of us makes it better.
“I think we have a problem with the physics. It is not by lack of trying or by the mindset or the motivation or energies. All of that is there, and I can see the buzz in the organisation.
“As racers, when we have such [disappointing] results, you’re feeling down, but we’re trying to change that with the right motivation for the week that comes. That’s why we are believing that we can turn this around. We believe that our organisation can dig ourselves out. I’m 100% sure we can.”
In Saudi Arabia, Wolff disclosed that Mercedes is grappling with a “fundamental” challenge concerning their new W15 car, impeding its performance particularly in high-speed corners.
He conceded that the team is currently unable to grasp the issue, perplexed by the discrepancy between Mercedes’ real-world performance and the data collected by the team.
“We had so many unknowns in the last year,” he stated. “Where we started, we said, ‘okay this could be a reason’ and ‘this could be a reason’ and ‘this could be a reason.’ And we fixed that.
“I can see from the sensors that we have what we needed. But there is still this behaviour of the car in a certain speed range, where our sensors and simulation say this is where we should have the downforce, and we are not having it.
“This team has not been overconfident. We are probably the other way around. We see that glass half empty always. And that attitude stays, but this is also the attitude to fix it.”
He added: “It is a different confidence that I have in the group this time around. At a certain stage, you’re basically ticking all the boxes of the unknown, and where we are today, it’s pretty clear where it points to. It’s just my feeling that that we will come on top.
“Is this good enough to beat a Max [Verstappen] in a Red Bull? No, it’s not. But at least bringing ourselves into a position of fighting for podiums and being right there, I’m 100% sure we are going to get there.”
