Mercedes refuses to throw away full concept of W13 at this stage

Mercedes are not moving forward this season. Toto Wolff argues after the near-disastrous weekend at Imola that the German racing stable doesn't quite have things in order, but the team boss refuses to say that Mercedes' dominant era is now definitely over.

Prior to the season, Mercedes impressed by revealing a car with virtually no sidepods. The team, which became world champion last year, got their hands dirty during the presentation of the W13, but they now seem to have missed the mark.

Negative record

On the Imola circuit, George Russell managed to secure fourth place, but Lewis Hamilton could not get his car past thirteenth place. On top of that, Mercedes' qualifying and sprint race failed completely, so that gives plenty of food for thought. It was the first time in ten years that there was no Mercedes in the top-ten of a qualifying session in the premier class of motor racing.

In conversation with Motorsport-Total.com, Wolff says that Mercedes does not have a simple solution at hand. If they had seen a way to unlock more potential, they would have done so five months ago, according to the Austrian. Wolff states that the current concept will not be completely jettisoned; he reports that this is the direction of development that needs to be taken.

And why is that? Wolff explains that first the reasons why the concept with the very small sidepods does not work must be looked at in detail, before Mercedes will admit to abandoning 2022 completely and put the development entirely on the 2023 car. It needs to know where the mistakes are first, to avoid driving in the middle of the pack again next year.