Mercedes rounded off the 2022 season with a third position in the constructor\’s championship and just one victory with George Russell\’s maiden win. The team struggled throughout the season in porpoising their car. W13 was comparatively very weak in front of Red Bull\’s RB18 and Ferrari\’s F1-75 as both the rivals successfully adjusted to the new rules. On the other hand, Mercedes had to face defeat.
However, the Silver Arrows kept on working on their car to increase the pace and performance of their drivers, which eventually resulted well. Due to this, the team did not get the chance to prepare for the next season. Mercedes remained to upgrade their car for the ongoing season. Meanwhile, Red Bull and Ferrari started developing cars for the next season.
Team Mercedes had to break their streak of 8-time constructor\’s champions this year. After facing the worst season in the entire career period, Mercedes now have some hopes for next year. However, Toto Wolff believes that they have already lost many months in developing cars for next season. \”Mercedes simply had to solve the porpoising problem before being able actually to add performance back into the car,\” said the Mercedes principal.
Toto Wolff Believes They Have Figured Out The Problems And Will Solve Them During This Winter
There are several factors responsible for the degrading hopes of Mercedes winning the 2023 F1 season. Toto Wolff explained the concerns for how behind they are at present in the run of developments. He believes that whatever the Silver Arrows added in terms of downforce went nowhere. The drivers could not get the goals they wanted. Even after the final upgrade, the car was unpredictable, and there was no less bouncing. According to Wolff, the team is six months behind where it should be. This delay in putting performance in W13 will be tremendously difficult to catch up against Ferrari and Red Bull.
However, the boss still has hopes and positive energy to believe that they will restore the lost pace during this winter break. Most of the problems will be solved during the break. He believes so because the team is on improving their aerodynamic performance, which plays a key role in becoming a challenging team.
When about what expectations he holds for the upcoming season, the Mercedes chief seemed hopeful. Wolff said that the team had already understood what the problems were this season. \”With the peeling onion layer after layer of W13. Gathering out more issues and problems the team has come to a point that suggests the reasons why the car is not performing,\” said Toto Wolff.
Further, the boss insisted that the very fine detail of how the car works aerodynamically is everything that needs to be figured out. It deals with improving the car and making it more stable. So just working on the parts that made this past season worst will make the upcoming season better, as believed by Toto Wolff.
