Toto Wolff, CEO and Team Principal of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, has not doubt that despite the way the past two races have gone for the team, he knows they’ll come back strong.
Mercedes haven’t been on the podium for two races now and missed out on points altogether at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Valtteri Bottas had a difficult weekend and was only able to finish the race in twelfth. Lewis Hamilton’s weekend also declined dramatically when he tried to claim first with a few laps left, accidentally switched off his brakes, sending his car flying into the runoff area. He was able to rejoin but crossed the line last in fifteenth.
Wolff said: In Monaco and here we didn’t have a car that was competitive, full stop. We have underlying issues – we are not getting the car in a happy window for the tyres.
“We know the deficit and we know we have gaps which we simply have to overcome but I have no doubt, this a team which is so strong and so angry, and we are going to turn that anger into positive form and come back. “
“In the last two races we haven’t been good enough” – Shovlin
Andrew Shovlin, Chief Race Engineer, doesn’t just look at the small mistakes that have happened over the past couple of weekends but as the race’s as a whole and what everyone needs to do to improve.
Despite Mercedes sitting on top just two races ago, Red Bull Racing have now taken that top stop away and Shovlin agrees that Mercedes just aren’t at the top level at the present moment.
“An extremely disappointing end to the weekend but that’s just how luck pans out sometimes; Max’s misfortune put us in that position in the first place. The bigger issue that we have to deal with is that in the last two races we haven’t been good enough.
“Not fast enough, we’ve made mistakes, we struggle to switch the tyres on and we’ve been on the back-foot through free practice. We know the level it takes to win championships and we’re not at that level right now so we need to re-group and come back performing the way we know that we can.
“We have the team, the car and the drivers to win this but we need to be tough and honest with ourselves over the next few days. We’ve had days like this before and each time we’ve come back strong and we’ll look do that in France. “
