Lawrence EdmondsonF1 processor3 Minutes Reading
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff likened the challenge of catching Red Bull to that of climbing Mount Everest after his team scored less than the world champions’ points this year and finished a distant second in the standings.
Red Bull won the constructors’ title in dominant style this year, taking wins in all but one of the season’s 22 races, while Max Verstappen took a record 19 wins in a year to secure the drivers’ crown.
The Dutchman has won the last three drivers’ titles — extending his lead over his nearest rival each time — while Red Bull has replaced Mercedes as Formula 1’s dominant force since the introduction of new technical regulations in 2022.
“Red Bull started these regulations in 2022 with a huge advantage and were able to maintain it,” Wolff said. “We have to have a lot of respect for their achievement, engineering-wise and driver-wise, and to beat them under the current regulations is against the odds, that’s for sure.”
Mercedes secured second place in the constructors’ championship at Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but managed just 409 points out of Red Bull’s 860 this year.
Work on next year’s cars has been underway for several months, with Red Bull neglecting development of this year’s dominant RB19 to work on the upcoming RB20, while Mercedes opted to make major changes to its car concept in the hope to unlock a large yield profit in the winter.
“We’ve seen with McLaren an update unlock a second of lap time, and with AlphaTauri coming on strong at the end and Aston Martin in the winter, there’s a key to unlocking dramatically more performance,” Wolff said.
“I think we make that honest assessment that this car is never going to be good enough to fight for the championship, and we made the decision in the spring that we have to go back to the draw and find something new next. year. But Everest is ahead of us.”
Asked if he was optimistic about 2024 based on the progress he had seen at the Mercedes factory, Wolff added: “I’ve never felt optimistic about anything in my life. That makes it sound bleak, but it saved me managing my expectations and pushing harder, because I think it’s never good enough.
“That’s why today I sit here with a bittersweet feeling that we won P2 today but lost P1. So we’re changing the concept, we’re completely moving away from how we designed the frame, the weight distribution, the airflow, I mean literally there’s almost every element that’s changed because that’s the only way we have a chance.
“We could also be wrong, so between not winning what we expect to reach, taking a big step and racing forward, anything is possible. If you ask me today, there’s always skepticism, but that’s the mentality in the team that pushes us forward to never give up.”