Mercedes AMG F1 boss Toto Wolff believes the performance gap with Red Bull has become “too big” and that it is vital to put an end to this situation next weekend in the Netherlands at round 15.
On Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps, Mercedes saw one of its drivers, Lewis Hamilton, retire on the first lap of the race following contact with Fernando Alonso’s Alpine at Turn 5. The other driver, George Russell, finished the Belgian Grand Prix in fourth place in a car that clearly lacked the pace of the two Red Bull rockets at the Belgian track this weekend.
In the fast lap exercise in Saturday’s qualifying, the gap was even greater with Lewis Hamilton relegated to 1.8 seconds behind Max Verstappen, while his team-mate George Russell finished more than two seconds behind the Red Bull driver. Against this backdrop, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is urging his troops to stick together.
“I don’t think we can be satisfied with this weekend – if you look at Verstappen, he was on top of us all [in Belgium]. We really need to find out how we can improve our car because the gap is just too big,” said Toto Wolff after the Belgian Grand Prix where Red Bull secured a one-two finish.
“We are giving the drivers a very difficult car to drive and it doesn’t have the pace on one lap, so we need to get out of this situation. Over the next four days we will think together, aim for the next race but also for next season.”
“It’s important that we stay united, keep our spirits up and don’t rotate too much between elation and depression – this weekend was a low point, but in Hungary three weeks ago we thought we could absolutely win a race, so we are never going to give up.”
After the Belgian Grand Prix, Mercedes sits third in the constructors’ world championship, 41 points behind Scuderia Ferrari, with only eight races left this season.
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Machiavelli’s brain hard at work how to neutralize Red Bull. Knowing how cunning Wolff is, not to mention unscrupulous, I have no doubt that he has more aces up his sleeve. He took the world by surprise with the illegal engine in the last races of 2021 and before anyone could say ‘Huh?’, they were running away with the championship until Karma took a hand.
I am curious to see what he is scheming, that he would implement with the collusion of FIA.
It must be a toss up between Wolff and Xi Jinping as to who is the most evil person on earth.
When the history of Formula 1 is compiled, the Wolf-Lulu-MB period would go down as the nadir of F1 racing that was finally rescued by a prince charming 🙂
Illegal engines? I must have missed that.
I’m with you on that, what is this guy on?! Perhaps Red bull are using illegal rocket engines or bodywork?! Weird man, there really is some c*#p posted on this site!
Not the engine was illegal but the absurd use of multiple engines. After sacrificing Bottas to find out when an engine was the most powerful, they just gave lulu a new one almost every race. The gridplaces punishment were laughable. This repeated engine-swapping was totally against the spirit of the rules. Rules that were in place to prevent exactly that what MB did.
Also funny how George Russel turns out to be a nasty little boy that speaks his masters voice. After his campaign for ‘driversafety’ and purposing, he complained loudly about Ferrari and RB not sticking to the spirit of the rules with their floor design…. Hypocrisy is not a word he understands I guess.
If MB is not winning, then F1 is not fair according to the World of Wolff
Yeah, getting real sick of MB lately. Having a big cry now that they are not dominant. Big cry babies.
Oh God! So much negativity…. Guy can’t even criticize his own car now?
And the wtf is wrong with the author writing words like moaning in the title? Professionalism much? And all the mb haters here are unbelievable. When they were winning… “Oh we are bored of one team dominating”. Now when they are not, the gate still doesn’t go away…
MB and wolf didn’t moan for 7 years when everyone else was not in the same game, now he’s being beaten at his game he,s turned driver’s into cry babies as well