Wolff takes stock of Mercedes' first half of the season

The summer break is in full swing, the factories are at a standstill, the opportunity to take stock at mid-season for the teams of Formula 1. At Mercedes, the start of the year has been eventful to say the least. The world champion team quickly became disillusioned from the first Grands Prix, with a poorly born W13. If the very first races were difficult – with images of a Lewis Hamilton wiped out in Saudi Arabia for example – the Silver Arrows then made up for it, culminating in Russell’s pole position in Hungary. On the Mercedes YouTube account, Toto wolff shared his views in a recap video. 

“The start of the season was really not good, there is no other way to describe it, begins the director of the German team. It’s frustrating to no longer be fighting with the others at the front when we won the championship in December. Since then, we have been on a roller coaster ride. We got on the podium in almost every race. We are strong on Sundays but we are never really present in qualifying. The gap was simply too big. Now we need to understand what is going on. In the second part of the season, let's hope that we will increase the pace in qualifying to be able to play for victory. »

“We have to take the positive” relativizes Wolff

At the end of the 13 Grands Prix contested, Mercedes nevertheless has a fairly convincing record. With 11 podiums and 304 points scored, the German team is only 30 points behind Ferrari, which has a significantly faster car. Even if this is not the objective that the Silver Arrows set at the start of the season, the 2022 campaign is very good in relation to the performances of the car. “There wasn’t much that went well, considering we wanted to fight for the championship. But we have to take the positive”, says Toto Wolff.

“What we've always said is that there are days when you lose, other days when you learn, and I think that's what's happening now. Our car was really difficult to drive, it wasn't getting any better. The difficult learnings we have learned will help us for years to come. (…) We plan to continue to develop the organization over the next two, five or ten years. All the difficulties encountered this year can be beneficial. »

Porpoising, Mercedes' time bomb

If Mercedes had so many difficulties at the start of the season, it is obviously because of the porpoising which affected the W13. The Brackley team had attempted to exploit an extreme aerodynamic “zero pontoon” concept. “Our main weakness from the start was that our car bounced with the famous porpoising. This overshadowed all our development, we could not develop the car on aerodynamics and make changes”, explains Wolff.

According to the Austrian director, Mercedes took time to understand its package. “The more support we had, the more rebounds there were. Since Barcelona, ​​we understand the car better and we have almost no more bounces. But so we missed a few months of development and now we are playing a catch-up game with the teams in front. »

Mercedes achieved two good results in the last two Grands Prix (2nd and 3rd in France, 2nd and 3rd in Hungary with Russell's pole position). All that is missing is victory to finally consider the Silver Arrows back in the match against Ferrari and Red Bull. The German team will be one to watch closely from the next Grand Prix, at Spa-Francorchamps (August 26-28).

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