Mercedes’ struggles don’t seem to be coming to an end any time soon. At a time when Red Bull is dominating, and the likes of Ferrari and McLaren are making tremendous strides, Toto Wolff’s team is still wrestling for performance, which will keep their cars in the top 10 comfortably. Regardless, taking inspiration from McLaren, Wolff had some encouraging words for his team.
McLaren was one of the worst teams on the grid at the beginning of 2023. However, they made some big strides, and ended the season, regularly competing for podium finishes. The Austrian boss recognizes that the Woking-based outfit has overtaken them, despite starting 2023 behind. But taking the positives, he feels they must continue believing that they can do the same. To Motorsport Italia, he said,
“McLaren, on the other hand, was at the back of the group, whereas today it is ahead of us. On the one hand, this shows that, when you manage to do things in the right way, the situation can be reversed, we must continue to believe, but at the moment it is very difficult.”
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are visibly frustrated with how things are unfolding at Mercedes. Their performance seems to be getting worse with each race, and there is no guarantee that they will have a McLaren like resurgence come the end of 2024.
Toto Wolff agrees that there is no short-term remedy to the issues they are facing at the moment. Things reached boiling point last weekend in Australia, when both drivers ended the race with 0 points. While Russell’s retirement was on the final lap because of a crash, Hamilton had to retire midway due to a power unit issue, which is much more concerning.
How did Lewis Hamilton react after the Australian GP?
Lewis Hamilton, after the Australian GP, admitted that he doesn’t see much scope of improvement heading into the next few races. The seven-time world champion had a dismal end to his race in Melbourne, and is gearing up for a long and hard season.
Hamilton admitted that his engine failure was not something he saw coming. His race unraveled before his eyes within seconds, and there was nothing he, or the team could do to prevent it.
Meanwhile, Russel suffered a scary crash on lap 58 while trying to overtake Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso. The Briton was running in P7, but the Silver Arrows ended up leaving Melbourne without a single point. Following this, Mercedes moved down to P4 in the constructors’ standings, and seem to be a long way behind McLaren and Ferrari.
