Toto Wolff, Mercedes team principal, is annoyed with no “bright spots” from the Formula 1 weekend. He maintains that the team needs to improve car performance, which is not at par with its competitors.
Lewis Hamilton, seven times world champion, fetched second place in China’s Grand Prix sprint race. However, the team struggled to remain at front during the main race, where it tailed McLaren and Ferrari.
The team had put great efforts to understand its W15, but it could not produce and upward performance trend. Wolff believes the team needs to enhance the overall capacity rather than focusing on small changes.
Wolff reacted to Chinese GP: “Not satisfied at all. Maybe a small highlight with second place in the sprint race, but the performance is not there.
“We can keep telling ourselves that there were bright spots at the weekend, but we have to take a step.
“We’ll bring a bit of something to Miami, where hopefully we can expect something. But today you’re just behind the Ferraris and behind [Lando] Norris. Just not good enough.”
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Mercedes started the season with high confidence about its W15. However, early results showed struggling performance especially in high speed corners.
As the season progressed, the team unveiled more issues in its W15 which makes it trickier to handle.
Wolff admitted to the car short comings and said: “I think we absolutely achieved that, in the high speed we were super competitive, also in Suzuka through the Esses, and it was day and night compared to what we had before.
“The drivers were speaking about it as the best car they had in the last two-and-a-half years. Then we really didn’t perform in the low speeds.
“So you gain half a second in the high speed, but you lose half a second in the low speed. The equation is back to zero, so that is something we need to improve.
“We are beyond the point of understanding and we just need to improve now. That is what it needs to hop to, and we have all the facts on the table.
“We know what we tweaked in order to solve the high-speed, and we know where the car was before to be quick in the low-speed. Now we just need to bolt the car together that does both of them.”
