Toto Wolff explains decision to reverse decision and be at F1 Japanese GP, plus adds on PU situation, testing and more.
Before the double DNF for Mercedes in F1 Australian GP, the original schedule had Wolff missing this weekend’s Japanese GP in order to get work done at Brackley. But after the disaster, the Austrian made up his mind to be at Suzuka with the race team.
He reckoned it would have been wrong to be not in Japan after the happenings in Australia. He needed to be at Suzuka to oversee some of the experiments they are running. Staying with the Melbourne weekend, Wolff also confirmed the situation with the power unit.
Post the weekend, Mercedes took their time to analyse the root cause of the failure on Lewis Hamilton’s power unit. And upon investigation, Wolff confirmed that the engine is beyond repair and it has been shelved, with Hamilton taking his second in Japan.
Regarding the incident between Fernando Alonso and George Russell and the subsequent outcome and the mixed responses from the drivers, Wolff chose to believe the data of the Spaniard doing things differently on the last lap to his other laps.
Further on, he also confirmed private testing for its protege and F2 racer Andrea Kimi Antonelli. While he was due to test later on, Mercedes has added more with Austria first up in where he drive the 2021 car before getting to drive the 2022 version.
Here’s what Toto Wolff said –
Decision to come to Japan –
Wolff: “Yeah, I had planned not to come to Japan because there’s so much on back in Europe, things to do. But then I felt not coming to Japan was the wrong choice. I think it’s important to be with the race team also. It does me good also to be close to the action. We are experimenting with a few things and then being part of the team really gives me energy. I hope the other way around too. So that’s why I decided against staying in Europe. And the struggle that you’ve mentioned. I think we’re a sports team. We’ve won eight times in a row and that hasn’t been done before.
“You have periods where you struggle like any other sports team and you can’t win every time. That’s why this is a super challenge. It’s not a race, it’s not one single season and then you come back out on top, but it’s the third one in a row. But I remain absolutely convinced that we will be looking back in a few years and saying that was so tough but so important for the development of the team from maybe an organisational standpoint, from re-evaluating our tools and systems, which clearly don’t work as good as they did in previous regulations.”
Power unit gone out of use –
Wolff: “Yeah, that one is for the bin. It is a very highly unusual failure that we have, a hardware failure that we didn’t see coming before. So yeah, we can’t reuse that. And it depends how the season develops, whether we need one more or not. I can’t really see at that stage whether that will be needed or not.”
Test confirmation for Andrea Kimi Antonelli –
Wolff: “The programme of Kimi driving Formula 1 has been in place for a long time and hasn’t changed massively over the last few weeks. What we have done is added more days, but what you will see in the next few months has been in place, whether or not he’s going to sit in a Formula 1 car next year. So, yeah. We’re going to do a few of these days for him to get comfortable in an F1 car.
“He’s driving the 2021 car in Austria for the first time. We want to give him a feeling what a really good car feels like before we put him in the ’22. Obviously, he’s been our young boy since a long time, with James, and we’re keen to see what he’s able to do in a Formula 1 car. Ollie Bearman was refreshing to look at how competitive he was in Saudi Arabia. No free practice, high speed, complicated track, and he was right up there. So Kimi would be doing just fine.”
Take after two weeks on Alonso/Russell incident –
Wolff: “You can hear the drivers. They obviously understand much more on a track that I’ve never raced on. They’re split. I think Fernando was aggressively defending with trying to take out the momentum before the corner. Maybe he’s overdone it. And George was just trying to, you know, make an overtake there, but also takes a certain part of responsibility for having lost the car there. So what I make of this accident, I think in these high-speed corners, maybe… You need to take a little bit of the karting philosophy out of killing speed before the corner in order to have a better accident. But who am I to say, I’m not sitting in that car, I’ve never been on that level, so I’m just an observer and I look at the data and throttle and brake input, and that was very different on that lap to all the others.”
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