For the first time in eight years, Mercedes sees its dominance position in Formula 1 seriously threatened. Therefore, its director considers that it is time to modify some things to revitalize the team.
Everyone assumed that the last season of these regulations would be one more ride for Mercedes, which would therefore obtain the eighth consecutive world title. However, the regulatory modifications made to reduce the speed of the cars have done a lot of damage to the Anglo-German formation.
Instead, Red bull He returns to his own power and relives with Max Verstappen the best moments of the Austrian team together with Sebastian Vettel, chaining five consecutive wins and leading both championships.
“The odds are against us as they have an overall performance advantage”
Facts that force Mercedes to rethink some things, although not yet giving up, according to her Toto wolff. “This is still a long championship, it is clear that the odds are against us as you can see that they have an overall performance advantage. But all these years I tried to keep my feet on the ground by not being carried away by success and now I have to do the opposite.
“We are not going to give up at any point in the season, unless it is no longer mathematically possible to win this championship. That is why we need to see things with optimism instead of pessimism as in the past », says the director of Mercedes.
Optimism
Toto Wolff has always adopted a speech that has sometimes been difficult to fit in, because despite Mercedes’ dominance, the Austrian always warned of the danger of his rivals.
Instead, this year Wolff says it is time to stop pessimism and see things with greater hope. “I am always a skeptical person, with a glass half empty mentality, but in this case I am being positive. And the positive is that there are 13-14 races left, we are one abandonment of Red Bull, no more, and we have lost more points than we should have lost due to our own mistakes, so this is fine.
“Clearly in Austria, in the last few races, we did not have the performance we should to fight Red Bull and we are very aware of that. We have to agree on each area and, hopefully, do better in the rest of the circuits »Wolff concluded.
After nine races, Mercedes must recover 44 points in the constructors’ championship, while Lewis hamilton He gives up 32 points to Max Verstappen.