Wolff discusses new concept: 'Gap to Red Bull may have tripled'

Toto Wolff sees it tough for his team: Mercedes. The team boss saw that the gap with Red Bull had grown yet again. Will the German racing team shake up the W14 concept?

Wolff was bitterly disappointed, he told the media after the Bahrain grand prix, including Racefans.net. "I think we’ve almost doubled if not tripled the gap to Red Bull. And this is what we need to look at.”

Mercedes lacks downforce

The Austrian sees few bright spots. The Mercedes lacks downforce. "With us, everything’s bad. The single-lap pace was still good but in the race we saw the consequences. To put it bluntly, it’s just we were lacking downforce and when you’re lacking downforce you’re sliding the tyres, and when you’re sliding the tyres you’re going backwards.”

New concept for the W14

Wolff thinks Mercedes has missed a year of development, and that the Mercedes may have to be completely redesigned. He points at Aston Martin, that flipped over their car design and are now in the mix. Mercedes is considering changing the car's design. "Still with an emphasis on making this work, obviously, but we’ve already looked at different concepts”, Wolff said.