The Silver Arrows camp endured a torrid outing in final weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. The W15 suffered dealing with instability, Lewis Hamilton didn’t progress into Q3 earlier than retiring with an engine failure and George Russell crashed closely two laps from the flag.
Whereas the automobile confirmed aggressive tempo every now and then in Melbourne, it was inconsistent – regardless of the change away from the size-zero sidepod idea and shifting the cockpit rearwards for 2024 being partially geared at making a extra dependable platform.
Wolff reckons Mercedes has a “physics downside” and there’s a correlation situation between the wind tunnel knowledge and on-track efficiency however says the workforce has not “swallowed a dumb capsule” since profitable the final of eight constructors’ crowns in 2021.
“As a co-owner of this enterprise, I must guarantee that my contribution is constructive and inventive,” mentioned the Austrian. “So, I might be the primary one to say, ‘If anyone has a greater concept, inform me’. I am to show this workforce round as shortly as potential.
“I am going to fortunately give my enter and see what that may be, who that could possibly be. However we’ve got a physics downside and never a philosophical or organisational downside, as a result of we’ve not swallowed a dumb capsule since 2021.
“It is simply we do not perceive a few of the behaviours of the automobile that previously we might have all the time understood.”
Toto Wolff, Crew Principal and CEO, Mercedes-AMG F1 Crew
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Photographs
This was in reply to a query asking whether or not he was nonetheless the correct individual to steer Mercedes, having joined the workforce initially as govt director in 2013.
Straight addressing his future, Wolff – who signed a brand new three-year contract earlier this yr to stay on the helm of the Brackley operation- reckoned he was not but at a degree the place he was contemplating relinquishing management.
“I look myself within the mirror each single day about every little thing I do,” mentioned Wolff, who owes a 33% stake within the workforce.
“If I believed that I ought to ask the supervisor query or the coach query, I feel it is a truthful query, but it surely’s not what I really feel in the intervening time that I ought to do.
“However when you have any concepts who might flip this round, I am going to fortunately hearken to that.
“The massive distinction is, it is not the supervisor query when it comes to ‘that is my job and I’ll cease the job’… I have never obtained that alternative, which can also be unlucky.
“I am not a contractor or worker that claims, ‘I’ve had sufficient of this’. My hamster wheel retains spinning and I am unable to leap out.”
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