Wolff doesn't understand anything about the Mercedes data: 'It doesn't make sense'

It is the third year in a row that Mercedes cannot compete for the world title. The German team has modified the car this year, only this has not yet brought any major improvements in terms of performance. Team boss Toto Wolff is therefore frustrated that the car is not much faster.

After years of dominance when the regulations introduced in 2014, things have changed completely since 2022. Mercedes, in the 48 races driven since the new cars were introduced in 2022, managed to win just once. This season marks a new low: it is the worst season start for Mercedes since 2011.

Consequently, Wolff says: "With the rear tires in the rear and the front. I think that the car is so complex for us, where we put it in terms of the error balance and mechanical balance. And these two need to correlate. We've followed a certain trajectory over the last years and keep turning and circling."

Wolff frustrated by little improvement from Mercedes

At some point Mercedes found a different way, but it is not yet panning out great, Wolff agrees: "And we came to a point to say, okay, we got to do something different here because we are measuring downforce with our sensors and pressure taps. And it's saying as we have 70 points more downforce in a particular corner in Melbourne than we had last year. But on the lap time, it's not a km/h faster. So it doesn't make any sense. So where is the limitation? And I think we wanted to pick some few boxes. Is there any limitation that we spotted? And I think there is."

So there is downforce in the Mercedes car, but it does not correlate. "That's exactly what I'm saying," Wolff explains. "Everything over these two years, which we have seen points to that there should be much downforce than we believe it is. And now we've measured the downforce and it's there, we're just not able to extract the lap time out of it that we should. And that simulation show us. And it's not trivial. You know, like, I see you looking at me like, what the hell? Now imagine what we think."