F1 News

Wolff: We need to continue to push in order to win 2019 F1 world championship

Wolff: "We need to continue to push in order to win 2019 F1 world championship"

15-08-2019 08:05

Before the season started, Ferrari were favourites. Many fans, pundits and those involved in the racing predicted that Ferrari would be ahead after pre-season testing, but Mercedes has blown away the competition again. 

Over recent weeks, Red Bull and Max Verstappen have improved significantly. Verstappen has cut the gap to 66 points between himself and Formula 1 world championship leader Lewis Hamilton. Despite a comfortable lead in the constructors, and a solid buffer in the drivers' championship Wolff asks his team to keep pushing forward. 

Ferrari could have won at least two races during the 2019 Formula 1 season. A win for Charles Leclerc in Bahrain and Sebastian Vettel in Canada could have altered the standings slightly. The Silver Arrow's boss alludes to this. 

"The statistics could have looked a lot worse for us than it actually does. And this is the reason why we're not taking our foot off the pedal. We need to continue to push our performance level in order to win this championship because our competition isn't going to rest and let us run away with it," Wolff told Formula 1.  

Wolff went on to admit he was concerned after watching pre-season testing results. The team needed to introduce a different car in the second week of testing but couldn't match Ferrari until the last few days. 

"We knew that the second car for the second week of testing would have been completely different with much more downforce. We put the car on the track and it didn't perform as we had hoped. There was scepticism whether we got it right or wrong," Wolff said.

"But the group continued to assess and develop, there was never a sense of nervousness and in the last two days, finally we reached the level of Ferrari. We felt were in the position to fight for race wins, probably Ferrari would have the edge," Wolff said.