Mercedes has plan to attack top teams: 'Full throttle'

For Mercedes, this season is not going at all to plan. From 2014, the German team was the dominant force in Formula 1, but in 2022 they missed the boat in the development battle. Red Bull Racing and Ferrari took over the dominant role, relegating Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to third spot in the rankings.

This was initially mainly due to the amount of problems the reigning world champions had to deal with. They only really managed to solve those properly in Miami, which left them with a big gap to catch up. The expectation was that they could strike in Monaco in changing conditions, but a stunt in the Principality failed to materialize.

Mercedes must stay sharp

Toto Wolff looks into the preview on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix looking back at the weekend in Monaco and the opportunities ahead for Mercedes in Baku. "We scored solid points, but more was possible over the weekend, and we need to be maximising every opportunity we can to stay in the fight."

According to the Mercedes team boss, it helps in the development battle that F1 is going to race on a street circuit for the second time in a row. "With another street circuit in Baku up next, the team has been working flat-out to analyse those two races (Barcelona and Monaco) and identify the areas we can innovate to push us forward."