Toto Wolff is Worried Mercedes Might Not Be Able To ‘Climb the Mountain’ Lewis Hamilton Referred After Bahrain Preseason Test

Tanish Chachra | 02/03/2023
Toto Wolff is Worried Mercedes Would Be Unable To 'Climb the Mountain' Lewis Hamilton Referred While Speaking About W14's Competitiveness

The 2022 championship was a hard year for Mercedes as they failed to adapt to the new aero regulations released last year. It saw them slipping from winning the championship for eight straight years to eventually falling down to P3 in the table.

They reveal that the biggest issue with them last year was the faults in the fundamentals of their car. Despite claiming to solve most of the issues, Mercedes seemed to be not fast enough during the preseason testing.

In fact, many in the paddock, including Wolff, believe that Aston Martin, with their recent exhibition, can oust Mercedes from their last position in the table. Seeing all the underwhelming projections, Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton claimed that the Silver Arrows would have a mountain to climb.

However, Wolff is ready for worse news as he claims that their objective of reaching the level of Red Bull and Ferrari’s level could end up in failure. Thus, they can end up not meeting the standards of their seven-time world champion.

Also read: Mercedes F1 Named Culprit For Unresponsive Lewis Hamilton

Toto Wolff is worried things might go wrong for Mercedes

The 2023 season was aimed to be the revival year for Mercedes. Though they aren’t expecting to contest for the title straight away, they aim to give a hard to the title contenders ahead in the season. But Wolff could only know whether there is any progress after the season’s first race this weekend.

“Our expectations were that we would likely be playing catch-up to the front, based on how last year ended. That seems to be the case so far but we will only know for sure after this weekend,” said Wolff.

Though, everything is not bad for Mercedes. The Austrian claims this year’s machinery is better than last year’s, and they can improve things more rapidly, unlike last year.

The season is long

This year, F1 is going ahead with 23 races on the calendar, the longest schedule the sport ever had. Therefore, Wolff thinks the Bahrain test can’t reflect their season, and they can catch up with all the likely deficits they might have in the initial few races.

Nevertheless, Mercedes’s boss could be rejoicing in this uncharted phase of low expectations, which his team was never accustomed to before. This way, he could surprise other teams on the paddock if Mercedes manages to do better than expected.

Moreover, they also have a strong driver pairing, probably the strongest on the grid, which can maximize the car’s qualities. Though, only the first race of the season could disclose what lies ahead for the Brackley-based team this year.

Also read: If Max Verstappen Continues Brazilian GP Selfishness, Sergio Perez Claims to Abandon His Support for Third Title Push

Post Edited By: Tanish Chachra
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Toto Wolff

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

Don’t miss these