Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff is not confident about his team returning to prominence in the 2023 F1 season.
After eight years of dominance, Mercedes don’t have the strongest car on the grid anymore. Red Bull and Ferrari have leaped them in terms of performance and they find themselves in P3 in the standings with five races to go.
They went off to a slow start this season but improved consistently which saw the Silver Arrows close the gap between themselves and Ferrari in second. Before the Singapore GP, Mercedes were just 35 points behind Ferrari and had a chance of clinching P2 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
#F1: Toto Wolff says a Mercedes contract extension for Lewis Hamilton “is going to happen”:
🗣️| “The advantage is we speak a lot together. Just last week we sat down and he says ‘look, I have another five years in me, how do you see that?’”
— deni (@fiagirly) October 3, 2022
However, their outing in Singapore turned out to be disastrous, with George Russell finishing P14 and Lewis Hamilton finishing P9. The gap between them ahead of the Japanese GP now is at 66 points, and Wolff thinks it’s very difficult to overturn it in five races.
Wolff is hoping that the team can shake off the poor Singapore GP result and bounce back at the Japanese GP in Suzuka.
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Toto Wolff aims to challenge Red Bull and Ferrari once again
There’s still some time to go before the 2023 season kicks off, but Mercedes already have one eye on it. They want to move past a season which they consider to be utterly underwhelming. It’s been a season of unwanted records for the Brackley-based outfit as they are on course towards having their first winless season since 2012.
Hamilton himself has won a race in every season since making his F1 debut since 2007. Unless he can win one in the remaining five races, it’s going to be the end of a legendary streak.
Wolff did not comment on whether Mercedes can get back to winning ways in 2023. However, he is not bullish about their chances of competing for the World Title once again, even if it’s something they want to achieve.
“But I don’t have 100 per cent confidence to say here, next year we will fight for the World Championship,” he said in an interview with Motorsport Total.
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Lewis Hamilton and George Russell set to start P6 and P8 respectively in Japan
Wolff wants Mercedes to bounce back and have a great result at the Suzuka Circuit on Sunday. Their weekend, however, did not go off to a perfect start after a disappointing qualifying session.
Red Bull and Ferrari looked like the strongest teams out on track, but the Mercedes drivers were miles off the pace to the frontrunners. Russell in particular struggled a lot with the young Brit just about managing to scrape into Q3.
That’s P6 for Lewis and P8 for George on the #JapaneseGP grid – bring on tomorrow 💪 pic.twitter.com/ZXlof1iMNX
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) October 8, 2022
After the session on Saturday, Hamilton revealed that he wasn’t happy with the car. “We’ve had a very draggy car all year. I’m pushing the pedal as hard as I can, but we can’t go any faster.”
Despite having a poor car, both drivers will be hoping for the W13 to find some real race pace tomorrow, which might put them in contention for a good points haul in their fight for P2 in the Constructors’ Championship.
