Toto Wolff says the plans for F1 2022 has already been readjusted and that the tough two races won’t change things, as Christian Horner adds on his comments.
Mercedes expected low-key run in Monaco and Azerbaijan this year, but it ended up being a disaster, where Red Bull managed to gain, not only on the drivers’ side, but also the constructors’ championship – a healthy one in the latter.
While a return to normalcy in France is expected, but for the future F1 seasons, Wolff is nt seeing major changes for the races like in Monaco and Azerbaijan. The Austrian noted that they have already readjusted their places and nothing more will change on that.
“We already readjusted the plans for 2022 and there’s no way of making out of it,” said Wolff to written media. “We will not change any decisions that we have taken, strategic decisions, just because we had two really bad race weekends. We knew that these two racetrack are probably the worst for us. And I hope I’m right with that assessment.
“And let’s see how the European races go now. But clearly these two were absolutely below the standards that we set ourselves and the expectations that we set ourselves. They are the toughest. Because not having performance in Monaco and Valtteri who would have made it solid on the podium needing a pitstop of 36 hours is not really great achievement, based on the standards that we’re setting ourselves.
“And then the car that was almost all sessions nowhere. To be honest, cruising in third and even trying to make it was okay. But I mean, it’s just not acceptable that we are not getting the car into a performance position after the start, or out of the pitstops. It’s just we’re losing seconds over seconds, with the kind of… seconds over seconds with… to get the car in a happy window it functions. Just takes too long,” summed up Wolff.
Elaborating more, Wolff noted that Mercedes hasn’t been on their ‘A-game’ for some time and these things only makes their life harder, when fighting against competition like Red Bull. “I think there’s lots of things that are not running smoothly as they have in the past few years,” he said. “We, like you say, operationally we are not, it’s not our A game.
“We haven’t found really sweetspot of the car through qualifying and race, having a quick qualifying car and a quick race car. There’s just so much that we need to improve, that I just want to get on it right now after this call in order to make sure that we actually able to compete for this championship. Because you can’t continue losing points, like we’ve done in Monaco and Azerbaijan. It is just not acceptable for all of us,” summed up Wolff.
Responding to the comments made by Wolff, Red Bull’s Horner stated that the Austrian is not afraid to roast his own team, but he has the right to do so. In terms of title battle, the Brit is not taking it lightly, as he fully expects them to bounce back.
“A lot has been made about Toto’s comments in Azerbaijan. “He’s never afraid to roast his team, so publicly which I disagree with. But that’s his prerogative. As for the fight, obviously in Azerbaijan, it looked like we’re going to do a bit more damage than we ended up doing, but we’ve just got to grab our opportunities when they present themselves and it was a real rollercoaster.
“I felt like I aged for like 20 years in the last hour of the race, where we had the race, under control, with a 1-2, and then to suddenly lose Max and his ability to extend the championship lead by would have been 11 points with the fastest lap. So that was obviously immensely frustrating but at least Hamilton didn’t capitalise on that,” summed up Horner.
Here’s Mercedes on what happened with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas
Here’s Valtteri Bottas on weird Baku race
Here’s Lewis Hamilton on button plus Toto Wolff adds on
Here’s Sergio Perez on win, Christian Horner on his rise
Here’s Max Verstappen and Pirelli on tyre blowout
