Toto Wolff: Mercedes are so far behind Red Bull that our practical target is Ferrari
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff feels the team is so far behind Red Bull that at this point, it makes sense to just focus on beating Ferrari.
Speaking to RacingNews365, Wolff claimed Red Bull will be at an advantage in these regulations because of the headstart achieved by the team this season. He alluded to the fact that Mercedes lost a chunk of development time as it tried to understand the car concept which ate up a lot of time. He said:
"That will certainly be an advantage for them. They will take the positive aspects of that car into the next cars. We may have lost eight to ten months in that development battle because we couldn't figure out what was wrong. So we certainly have a challenge ahead of us. But we're playing the long-winded game. Everyone here, including the drivers. We don't judge the team by one year or one weekend, but by how we have been able to win multiple world titles in the long run."
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Toto Wolff also revealed that Mercedes was aiming to usurp Ferrari in the championship to finish as high as second. He said:
"That will certainly give some satisfaction. The Ferrari was the fastest car at the start of the season, so to finish ahead of them would be great, but it's not our priority, because that's being able to fully understand the car to get a fast car on the tarmac."
Mexico was our best chance to win this year: Mercedes boss
When questioned after the race in Mexico whether the race was the German squad's best chance to win the race, Toto Wolff agreed and claimed that their simulations predicted so. He said:
"On the simulations, it says yes [this was our best chance to win this year]. But we see the tendency that we are able to compete and I'm really proud of the team with what we did this weekend. We experimented with a lot of things - the engine guys pushed the boundaries to really give us maximum performance so I think it will be a mix between trying to maximise [this year] and trying the most for next year."
Two rounds to go. P2 in the Constructors' still in sight.
Let's keep up that chase, Team. 💪 https://t.co/ItW2KotRN4
He added:
"I am never confident, I always see the glass half empty, so there is nothing really to see that's positive. There's no reason to be overwhelmed finishing second and fourth, but we have a long way to catch up. We have the winter and I think we're doing some good development on the car and some of the biggest steps might be more than just adding a few points of downforce. We're giving it whatever we have and more in order to bring us back in a position to fight for a championship."
Mercedes still has two races left this season and it will be interesting to see if the German team can snatch a win.