Mercedes racing has been on a rollers coaster ride this season, coming off from being the constructors\’ champions consistently for eight straight seasons. However, the tides turned this season, and the Silver Arrows were stuck in a terrible situation. The introduction of new aerodynamic regulations did not bode well with Mercedes, who struggled to get their car right. The early troubles with porpoising and the lack of pace hindered the German outfit\’s progress. It allowed Red Bull and Ferrari to take a significant lead in the championship. Not just that, the frustrations for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell kept on mounting. They continuously fell behind Red Bull and Ferrari this year, unable to win a single race so far.
However, Mercedes have shown some serious progress over the last few races. They secured seven podiums in the last five outings along with double podiums in France and Ferrari. George Russell also secured the shocking pole position in Hungary. And the team looked on course for a win during the second half. The journey this year has been tough for Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and his team after being a part of an emotional roller coaster each racing weekend.
And recently, Toto Wolff revealed how painful and difficult it was to live by the team\’s values and doubts. The former Austrian driver described Mercedes\’ progress as oscillating from \”depression to exuberance\” before things turned around the next day. He added, \”And in a way that when you kind of think nothing that you do works, it is a bit of a Groundhog day.\”
According to Toto, Mercedes moved forward by ruling out things that did not function at all. Then, they moved on to other ways and found the improvement. Wolff shared that he actually had a real-life experience of how it was important to lose in order to thrive like it is preached and written in books.
Toto Wolff Talks About The Humbling Challenges Mercedes Faced In 2022
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin stated that his team found quick snub fixes to get over porpoising while a regulation change was delayed for months. He suggested that the early-season troubles helped the Silver Arrows understand the issue and find a feasible solution for it. However, Wolff shared that he would rather not have been in the middle of the painful situation, despite the team managing to turn things around.
Toto was proud to get rid of porpoising. He felt that the experience was certainly valuable from an engineering viewpoint. However, it was quite difficult to cope with the troubles from a professional human standpoint. Wolff shared how Mercedes had to find fixes to their problems quickly in a lost situation. They need to ensure the competitiveness of their next season\’s car. The 50-year-old concluded, \”Because if the top engineers don\’t really understand why the data are not correlating with reality, that\’s not easy.\”