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Toto Wolff was confident of Mercedes' competitiveness in the 2025 F1 season as he told Lewis Hamilton to "picture" their rear wing after he moved to Ferrari.
Early in February, Mercedes announced that Hamilton would leave the team, and at the same time, his move to Ferrari was announced for the 2025 season. Although the Briton has achieved record-breaking success with the team since 2013, their form in the past two seasons has been on the decline.
Lewis Hamilton has not won a single race since the 2021 F1 Saudi Arabia GP despite coming close to one during the 2023 season. All the while Ferrari has made steady progress with their cars and seems to have a promising outline for the rest of the current season.
While Hamilton will no longer be a part of Mercedes next year, team principal Toto Wolff was confident of Mercedes' positive development in 2025, as he told Hamilton before the season started:
"I think first I can’t imagine him in red," he told FOX Australia, "I don’t think it suits him, but I think that picture is going to be interesting."
"And then I told him, you’ve got to really picture our rear wing because that’s the perspective you’re going to have."
Mercedes, however, still looks in a bad shape in 2024. This has been statistically one of the worst starts to a season for them in the past decade and are on the verge of being dropped to fifth place in the championship.
Meanwhile, Ferrari achieved a 1 - 2 finish in the Australian GP last week, scoring the maximum points for the race.
Lewis Hamilton's final season at Mercedes at an all-time low with the unpredictable W15
The W15 was expected to be the car to pull Mercedes out of the turmoil that was created over the length of the past two seasons. But the car has continued to disappoint the team and Lewis Hamilton.
Last week during the Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton was forced to retire on the 17th lap of the race due to an engine failure. Teammate George Russell continued to battle in points for the remainder of the race, however, crashed out on the final lap, ending the team's weekend without any points.
During the weekend, Lewis Hamilton expressed his lack of confidence with the car, speaking to the media after FP2:
"After that session, I feel the least confident I've ever felt with this car."
It has been reported that the car persists in the issues from the earlier challenges, reflecting almost no positive development recently.
