Lewis Hamilton has spent the last two season living in Max Verstappen’s shadow with Mercedes unable to give him a car capable of beating their Red Bull F1 rivals
Toto Wolff has shared his one reason to hope Mercedes will be able to reel in Red Bull as soon as next season.
Neither Lewis Hamilton nor George Russell won a race in 2023. And the former has now gone more than two years without a victory since losing the 2021 title race to Max Verstappen.
Carlos Sainz was the only racer who wasn’t a Red Bull employee to win a Grand Prix this year, in contrast to the Dutchman and his nearly flawless team performance. The champions’ lead was so great that, even by the summer break, they could begin working on their 2024 car development well ahead of their competitors.
That does not look good for any other team hoping to catch up in the upcoming season. Wolff, the principal of the Mercedes team, nevertheless has reason to think it is possible.
He told reporters, “It is evident that you have the laws of diminishing returns, and your development or performance curve flattens.” “You can extract more when the regulations are more developed.
“That’s industrial theory, though; perhaps we are lagging behind, which is why our development curve is steeper. I’m not sure if it can be applied to the world of sports. The engineering team at Red Bull has done an excellent job; it’s good engineering. For whatever reason, they outperformed everyone else right out of the gate, and their driver is very skilled.”
According to Wolff’s theory, Red Bull is getting closer to the maximum amount of car performance that can be obtained under the current set of design regulations. Mercedes still needs to make more advancements in that area because they made poor aerodynamic decisions when the current ruleset was first implemented.
Further experimentation appears to be planned, even though the Austrian and his team have acknowledged that they were mistaken and have switched back to a more traditional strategy. When discussing the development of the W15, Wolff made numerous insinuations, including that his designers started from scratch.
“We are changing the concept,” he declared. We are making a radical departure from the chassis, weight distribution, and airflow layout that we originally designed. Almost every single element is being altered because, in my opinion, that is the only way we have a chance.”
However, Wolff added a warning: “We might also make a mistake. Therefore, anything is possible, including not achieving our goals, catching up, taking a significant step, and competing at the top.”
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