Austrian motorsport executive Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO of Mercedes, has laid the blame for what he believes to be sterile racing in the current Formula 1 campaign at the door of rival teams Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull.
With the new rules and regulation for the 2022 F1 season, Red Bull and Ferrari were the two teams that identifies the best solutions and proved to have the fastest overall package, despite their cars being designed according to different characteristics. As a result, Red Bull and Scuderia Ferrari have won all eleven races between them so far ahead of the French Grand Prix and Mercedes does not seem able to challenge for the individual or constructors’ standings this season, after many years of dominating the sport.
Mercedes have been further back in the pack as they have encountered difficulties in managing the ‘porpoising’ problems, despite the fact that seemed to have recovered part of the gap in the last two rounds, with Lewis Hamilton finishing on the podium at the Silverstone circuit and in Austria.
Toto Wolff should of course be labelled hypocritical if we consider how Mercedes lorded Formula 1 before the introduction of the new rules and regulations this year, by taking eight straight constructors’ titles and seven of the last eight drivers’ titles.
The Team Principal & CEO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team explained his point of view: “I think the reason why races have less entertainment is because there’s just too much performance gap between the teams. If you have [Red Bull’s Max] Verstappen disappearing into the distance, the two Ferraris being the only entertainment during the race and then we are in the middle of nowhere in no man’s land. Then the others are further behind, and then you have DRS trains. That never can make a good sprint race.” – he added.
At the same time, Toto Wolff’s erstwhile sparring partner, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, points out that Mercedes have indeed improved in the last few weeks and feels that the W13 cars will be able to fight with Red Bull and Scuderia Ferrari already from the next round of the 2022 Formula One season, the French Grand Prix, which takes place this weekend in Le Castellet:
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma! Enter the online Puma Store and shop securely! And get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
“We will expect them [Mercedes] to be quick in Ricard. They are showing flashes of being there or thereabouts. The last two races have been pretty decent for them and there’s been no sign I think of any porpoising at all, so they seem to be slowly bringing themselves back into the game. I think they will be a contender. They keep consistently scoring points. I’m not sure how far off they are in the constructors’ or drivers’ [championships] at the moment but sometimes having more cars in play is a good thing, sometimes it might be a bad thing. But I think for the fans it’s great to have six cars competing for victories.” – Red Bull team principal Christian Horner concluded.
Leave a Reply