Google News Toto Wolff: Another confirmation that we are not where we want to be
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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix has once again shown that they are not in the positions they would like to be. The Silver Arrows came to Jeddah to make a breakthrough in knowing and improving their W13 car with which they have a lot of problematic things.
Mercedes is working fast to reach its famous performances that adorned them in the period from 2014 to 2021. After the opening of the season in Bahrain, the German team was far behind Ferrari and Red Bull. However, they managed to take advantage of the withdrawal of both drivers of the Austrian team to get to the podium.
However, after the new racing weekend and the shown performances in the qualifications, it turned out that it will take much more time for the team to return to the fight for the first positions. A new embarrassing situation befell them as they fought for their starting starting positions for the race in Saudi Arabia.
Lewis Hamilton finished only in 16th position, something unthinkable for record holders in consecutive constructors' titles - eight in a row. Since they are in the phase of experimenting with their car, because they want to get closer to the leaders as soon as possible, there are mistakes that were visible during the qualifications in Jeddah.
Wolff on the season
The head of Mercedes says that the second race of the new season clearly confirms that they are not in the positions they want to be. At the seven-time world champion, they performed an experiment with a different setting, but the car did not respond as they thought.
"This is the second race of the season and another confirmation that we are not where we want to be and should be," says Wolff. "On the Lewis side, we experimented with settings that were worse, resulting in a lack of rear grip and the car became impossible to drive," he added.
On the other hand, another Mercedes driver had a problem with a lack of soft tires, so George Russell had only one set of the softest tires for the Q3. The Austrian believes that it is not acceptable for anyone to have a space between Red Bull and Alpine.
“For George, I think today was a tough day considering we only had one set of the softest tires for the Q3, so it was (was) a solid job from him. However, the optimal scenario for us today was no one's space between Red Bull and Alpine, and that is certainly not acceptable.
" "In general, I would say that this is not a problem. We have a lot of parts of the car that don’t work, that we don’t understand, that don’t work enough, and this is not where we expect the car to be, ”Wolff said.