Toto Wolff, Mercedes Formula 1 team principal, trusts his squad to bounce back to its might. The team struggled throughout the season and has descended to third place.
Mercedes remains undefeated throughout the hybrid era, 2014 to 2021. However, it failed to keep its crown in either drivers’ or constructors’ championship this year.
F1 history archives the decline of dominant teams. Many teams spent years in stagnation before they could rebound. Mercedes is mindful of the risk that it faces.
However, Wolff is hopeful that Mercedes’ fate would be different. Because its team and car engineers remain the same.
He asserts that there is no major cause of concern right now. Because it is retaining its top professionals, be it driver or crew members.
Wolff said: “Of course, we are talking about it. We are analysing what were the reasons in the past that teams that dominated over an era suddenly lost performance. And you can trace it back pretty well.
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“Change of regulation; people leaving; a tyre that changed fundamentally. We have the same organisation, the same capability, the same financial funding. And I believe we have things in common and we can trace it back.
“We are aware of all that and the regulation changed. We got it wrong. But all the other pillars are still in place. And we have to tune the systems, and understand.”
Wolff maintains that other squads had to fundamentally restructure their organizations. The restructuring process delayed other teams’ recovery time. He stressed that Mercedes does not require such an adventure.
Nonetheless, he remains equally vigilant of other factors that could put Mercedes in the same spot of back stage.
“You can see that with Ferrari, as an example, I mean they lost the whole top leadership and the key driver,” he said. “I think that is something where you can trace it back.
“With Red Bull it was a fundamental situation that the power unit regulations changed upside down and no works deal basically. So it was fundamental parameters changed.
“But we are looking at that and thinking. We better be careful. We better be careful because the season has gone by in a heartbeat. And we can’t let that happen, to look back after the next season and the one after.”
