Wolff hopes for a step forward from Mercedes in Barcelona

Optimization champion in the early season, Mercedes cannot be satisfied with being the third force on the grid. Despite the potential of this pontoon-less concept on the W13, the Brackley team is still far behind Ferrari or Red Bull to hope for a regular victory.

Each race weekend provides additional running time to understand the car. Mercedes, like in every Grand Prix, hopes to finally find the miracle solution this weekend in Barcelona.

During the Miami round, Friday had been very promising: George Russell set the fastest time in the second practice session.

During Friday’s tests, the car showed its true potential, claims Toto Wolff. We continued to experiment with the settings, installed new components, and that gave us answers and indications on the direction to take.

Wolff hopes that returning to a circuit already visited this season, during the winter tests, will help the team. A lot of work has been done in the factories to extract data from Miami and turn it into improvements for Barcelona. Having raced there during the winter tests, even with a car that has evolved a lot since then, it will be a good place to correlate the information we have on the current car. We hope to take another step forward.

For Toto Wolff, Barcelona will truly show where Mercedes stands, as the track is complete and tests all parts of the car. The track itself is quite versatile, so it really puts all aspects of the car to the test. It has never been an ideal track for overtaking. It will be interesting to see how the 2022 F1 cars impact the on-track spectacle in Spain.

Wolff knows, however, that Mercedes still has time to find the key. In terms of basketball, we are arriving in Barcelona at the end of the first quarter of the game. We know that once we have translated the learnings we are making into performance, there will still be a lot of game to play.