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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has shared his views on how bad the W14 F1 car is turning out to be as the 2023 F1 season gradually comes to a close. The car's performance has been quite erratic, with Lewis Hamilton finishing second in both the US and Mexican GPs but ending up eighth in the Brazilian GP.
After the race in Interlagos, Wolff claimed that the car does not deserve to win and that Mercedes will focus on recovering a few points from the last two races of the season before fully committing themselves to 2024.
"This car doesn’t deserve a win. I think we need to push for the last two races and then recover. That’s the most important thing," he told Sky Sports.
Toto Wolff's comments quickly went viral on several social media platforms. While some fans made fun of certain lines the Austrian has said before to praise his team, others simply discussed how bad the season is going for Mercedes.
Here are some of the reactions:
"My team doesn't make mistakes," one fan wrote.
"Good to see Toto speaking this…this is the first step to improve…we are seeing this for 2 years although with some small steps ahead…Mercedes is well behind RBR unfortunately…they need to speak less keep the ahead down and keep working harder and pushing!" another fan chimed in.
Lewis Hamilton pinpoints issues with Mercedes W14
Lewis Hamilton, along with his teammate George Russell, are struggling to drive the Mercedes W14 and bring home decent points.
As quoted by PlanetF1, the seven-time world champion recently guessed that the issue with W14 could stem from its floor. He claimed that the floor is not sucking the car down enough, making it more draggy.
"My guess is that the floor is not working. The floor is not sucking it down so that pushed us to go to a higher wing, and then we’re just massively draggy on the straights," the Brit said.
"And we’re losing so much time on the straights, there’s nothing I can do about it, and then we’re just sliding through the corners. So we have to look into why that is the case on this rough circuit," Hamilton added.
As of now, Mercedes has 382 points in the constructors' championship and is defending its second place against Ferrari. The fight for second place is still on with two races to go as the Italian team is only 20 points behind Mercedes.
