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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff admits that the Silver Arrows have a long way to go before they can challenge for wins in 2022.
After falling off the pace for the first 11 rounds of the 2022 F1 season, Mercedes came to Le Castellet (Circuit Paul Ricard) with plenty of upgrades, hoping to bridge the gap to Red Bull and Ferrari. However, Wolff and Co. were left scratching their heads after being more than a second behind Max Verstappen and more than half a second behind Carlos Sainz.
Despite being able to record their first double podium of the season, the Austrian feels that Mercedes have screwed up on multiple fronts in 2022.
In an interview after the race, Wolff admitted that the team was caught unprepared for the 2022 regulation changes. He said:
“Before Paul Ricard I would have said yes, now we wonder why we are a second behind Max Verstappen and six tenths behind Ferrari. We have a long way to go to be able to dream of victories. We screwed up mechanically, we screwed up aerodynamically, it’s never just one thing.’’
Lewis Hamilton feels it will be hard for Mercedes to beat Red Bull and Ferrari at 2022 F1 Hungarian GP
Lewis Hamilton believes that Mercedes will find it difficult to beat the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari at the upcoming 2022 F1 Hungarian GP.
After the Briton marked his 300th F1 GP start with a podium finish at the 2022 F1 French GP, Hamilton was asked if he thought Mercedes could challenge for a win at the Hungaroring. The seven-time world champion said:
“Budapest? Well, personally I love it in Budapest. Super excited to see the crowd there and I think...I mean it’s going to be hard to beat the Ferrari and Red Bulls. You’ve seen they have the pace advantage still but I am hoping we will bring some sort of upgrades to that track and [I] hope we take a step forward closer to them and if you can see us in the race at least lean on them a bit. So, hopefully in that race, we are even closer.’’
Prior to the race at Le Castellet, Silver Arrows' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin had also conceded that a win was not within the team's reach just yet. He said:
“Single-lap pace – we’d certainly say Max’s is out of reach, it looks like Charles is well out of reach... George had a better session. Lewis missing FP1 is one thing, but then the balance wasn’t where he wanted it in FP2 and in that situation, it’s quite difficult to recover. And then we didn’t do a great job of getting a good length of long-running. But you know, we’re still looking to be I think a podium contender rather than a win contender, but every weekend we’re learning and that’s the exciting thing at the moment for us is just understanding the rules better and better.”
Mercedes are currently third in the World Constructors' Championship standings with 270 points heading into the final race before the summer break.
