Wolff doesn't want 'another 18 months of suffering' but: 'This is reality'

Mercedes started the Grand Prix weekend in Japan full of positive energy. Lewis Hamilton even labelled the first free practice as "the best session of the Formula 1 season so far". In qualifying and the race, however, the German formation did not fare as well. Toto Wolff is already cautiously looking forward to the new 2026 F1 regulations, but certainly does not intend to throw in the towel in the next 18 months.

"If your expectation is eventually to race for wins and championship, then you can say with a bit of enormous line because Max and Red Bull are far ahead and we end in this punch. But it's not satisfying for neither team that is fighting for P2 and P3 or P4. So I've always said it, that if I was to look from a pure sporting point-of-view, pure sporting point-of-view is P1, what matters and not P2 and P3, P4," Wolff commented after the Japanese GP.

"But this is a reality that we are facing at the moment and we're trying to do the best out of this new reality. And that is to beat our competitors whilst acknowledging that somebody is just doing a better job and setting a benchmark that we eventually need to set ourselves again," the Mercedes team principal added.

Wolff: 'I don't want to suffer for another 18 months'

Asked whether Mercedes will manage to win races this year, Wolff replied: "I wouldn't want to let that ambition go, certainly not next year. But ’26 is, there is a big reset, which certainly provides the most realistic opportunity for any other team to beat Red Bull. But there is one and three quarters seasons before that, and I don't want to go through much more suffering in the next, whatever it is, 18 months. I just hope for highlights and a trajectory that's going upwards."

Mercedes started the race weekend at Suzuka strongly, but could not live up to it when it counted. In qualifying, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished no further than seventh and ninth. In the race, the drivers finished in the same positions, with Russell in P7 and Hamilton in P9.