Wolff: "With the new guideline, we will be much faster in the race"

The Italian Grand was already a noteworthy weekend before even a wheel was turned. For the first time in the hybrid era, special engine modes will be banned throughout the weekend. The intention is that Mercedes, in particular, will be disadvantaged by this, but the German manufacturer doesn't see it that way.

Toto Wolff explains in the press conference on Friday in Monza that this allows his team to drive with more power during the race. That's because the engine is less stressed during qualifying and other crucial moments.

Mercedes want even more in 2021

"We have fine-tuned the development so that we can deliver a lot of power, especially in qualifying. This was necessary after the increase in power from Ferrari in 2019. With the new guideline, we will be much faster in the race. The damage matrix allows us to go faster over that long distance."

“The engineers have now set themselves high goals for 2021. They said, 'Okay, we're taking the challenge, let's just run a race in 2021 with a permanent qualifying mode.'" The latter means that they are going to try to build an engine at Mercedes that can handle the special engine mode for a whole race.