Toto Wolff says Mercedes heads to Jeddah with the bit between its teeth, determined to chase “every point, every position and every millisecond” as it seeks to turn around its performance.
The sheer gap between Mercedes and its Red Bull rival in qualifying and especially on race day, coupled with the team’s underperformance relative to Ferrari and Aston Martin, left the Brackley in a state of crisis and scrambling to find solutions to improve its performance.
Significant updates are in the pipeline – targeted to be introduced at Imola – as well as a likely change of design for Mercedes’ zero-sidepod concept on its W14 car.
But in the interim, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell will need to make the most of their current-spec machines, starting this weekend in Saudi Arabia where Jeddah’s smoother track surface may better suit their troubled black arrow.
©Mercedes
“Our performance in Bahrain wasn’t where we want it to be,” said Wolff in his team’s Saudi Arabian GP preview.
“But this is the position we find ourselves in and it is already full steam ahead on the car, understanding it and working to get it in a better place. That’s an exciting challenge for all of us.”
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While not underestimating the magnitude of the task ahead, Mercedes crews are tackling the team’s problems with an abundance of drive and determination according to Wolff.
“Since Bahrain, we have had open and honest discussions from which we started to plan our fight back,” the Austrian added.
“In the short term, leaving no stone unturned in the search for performance. In the longer term, focusing our development to determine how we get to the front.
“I’ve already felt the energy and determination in the factory and know that will continue moving forward.”
Wolff steered clear of predicting Mercedes’ performance in Jeddah, but the team will attack the weekend head-on and hope that motor racing’s imponderables lend it a helping hand.
“Anything can happen in motor racing, so we’ll be working in Jeddah to maximise every part of our performance, chasing every point, every position, and every millisecond”, he said.
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“That’s one of the huge strengths of our driver line-up with Lewis and George. We are racers and giving everything we’ve got, every time we go on track.
“This weekend in Saudi Arabia we will learn more about W14, its characteristics and its limitations.
“It provides a very different test to Bahrain, and it will be interesting to see how the car reacts.
“We are bringing some small developments to the car: they won’t be game changers, but they can start moving us in the right direction.
“And we’ll be pushing as hard as we can to create opportunities, and hopefully will give us a better account of ourselves than in Bahrain.”
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