Mercedes team boss not expecting Ferrari-like F1 title drought
Nov.28 - Toto Wolff says he's sure Mercedes isn't heading into a Ferrari-like period of championship drought.
After almost completely dominating the initial 'power unit' era between 2014 and 2021, Lewis Hamilton failed to win a single grand prix this past season.
Team boss Wolff says it was purely about the car.
"It was our own fault," he told Auto Motor und Sport. "The others just did a better job with the new regulations than we did."
The Austrian said it took Mercedes "half a year" simply to get to the bottom of the so-called 'porpoising' issue.
"In our case, it was just the car," said Wolff. "So it's up to us to fix that.
"Everything else is stable with us - the team, the drivers, the technology."
He is therefore confident that Mercedes will not follow in the footsteps of Ferrari, who after 2007 and the ultra-successful Michael Schumacher era have failed to win a single drivers' title.
"Ferrari lost its entire management team and its driver at the same time," said Wolff. "And with Red Bull, they didn't have a factory engine. Crucial parameters were lost."
Many pundits are now expecting a close three-way battle between Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes in 2023.
"The cost cap will compress the field and bring us opponents who are not our opponents today," said Wolff. "I don't think eight titles in a row will be possible again.
"On the other hand, we have more wind tunnel time than Red Bull and Ferrari and we have to use that advantage."
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Mercedes will come back and be more competitive next season. It confounds me why it took them so many races to identify the causes of the porpoising, and there was still some evidence of it at the final race of this year! Although Louise is in decline, King George is on the rise! I think he will become the Mercedes knight in shining armour and take the fight to Max, Carlos and Charles next season.
As we are constantly reminded, they have the best engineers, best facilities and best driver on the grid , yeah funny isn't it lol, If Merc want to save a bit of Cash, sack the designer of the shed that was their 22 car and just copy Rb
Maybe it was just Lewis having a fat a**e after contemplating his navel after losing to Michael Masi (sorry I meant Max). Maybe it took them 6 months to realise that Lewis's bum was sticking out the bottom of the car?
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