Wolff: “Regulations do not change, although Red Bull is ahead”

Last year, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff initiated a mandatory modification of the cars to reduce bouncing (porpoising), although this was picked up by Red Bull, among others, as an attempt to slow down Red Bull. It led to a heated argument between the team bosses, with Red Bull team boss Christian Horner telling Wolff that Mercedes should adjust its cars themselves if it really was such a problem. The regulation change was still made and it did indeed lead to less bouncing in the cars, but Mercedes was ultimately unable to profit from it. This year Toto Wolff does not want to throw it again on such an approach.

The 51-year-old team boss says Racer that the rest of the field simply needs to ‘do better’ to close the gap to Red Bull. A gap that, according to Wolff, was at least half a second per lap in Baku. “Either we all need to do a better job to close that gap, or we need to change the regulations, but I don’t think we need to do the second one. We need to win on our own and that means working smarter with a stronger development curve than Red Bull.”

Wolff is convinced that Mercedes can eventually close the gap if it manages to make the car more predictable on the current basis. “It’s not so much about adding downforce, it’s more about giving the drivers a car where they know the rear won’t catch them going into a corner. That’s the problem.” It may just take a long time to resolve. Wolff would prefer to put all kinds of updates on the car like crazy to try everything and hopefully close the gap quickly, only the budget ceiling does not allow that. “As a result, we are now more stuck than ever before. Now we have to decide very carefully what we want to upgrade.”