Wolff has the solution for Mercedes: 'Take a chainsaw and cut it into bits'
After playing a supporting role in the Bahrain Grand Prix, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff is ready to take drastic measures in an attempt to fight for victories again. He believes it is time to "put the chainsaw in," he revealed after the race.
Earlier, Wolff stated that data would show that Mercedes would have more resistance than any other Formula 1 team. Meanwhile, he seems to have come up with a solution. "It's easy to take drag off the car. You just take a chainsaw and cut the rear wing into bits," said the Austrian in conversation with Sky Sports.
Wolff wants to leave no stone unturned
According to Wolff, that is exactly the plan for the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. "I think we probably were over-winged," he adds. He reiterates that the Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had too much drag.
"That's because we're short of parts at the moment," Wolff explains. "Hopefully we can fix that." According to the Mercedes team boss, this covers about half of the top speed disadvantage the team is currently experiencing, but he stresses that he wants to leave no stone unturned when it comes to getting everything out of the powerplant.
Doesn't explain why all the other Merc powered cars did so poorly in comparison.
They didn't loos 1 or 2 members of their team to Redbull. If I'm correct it was so.ethimg like 50
So......do I get this correct,the wing was not the correct specification for the track they also did the 3 days of testing on? Or for some reason,they came up with a wing design that is too draggy?Surely that would have shown up in the wind tunnel or CFD.
I wonder what some people will say if Hamilton will win on Sunday :)))after this statement :)) Of course there is a little chance for that but the comments regarding sandbagging will start :)) again:))
Lewis is in a Midfield car...More experience for him this year... New Midfield Champ #44 yellow one.........
The wings are a smokescreen for the terrible Merc engine. I think they got rapped on the knuckles behind the scenes similar to Ferrari in 2019. As odds as Ferrari's straight line speed was in 2019, you have to say Merc's straight line advantage in the second half of 2021 and especially the last 4 races was much more so, Merc much more blatant in pushing the bounds of legality.
@Simpleh Lovely +771223-03-2022 01:07 I think they are caught out in simulations vs reality on how the E10 fuel works with their engine, i agree with you that it seems to be more of an engine issue then aerodynamics as all Mercedes engine powered teams are very much struggling, despite having very different aerodynamics concepts.
They've lost several top engineers over the last few years which didn't have much effect on their last car as it had a good baseline. With a completely new formula, save the engines, I think those losses are now showing. This just goes to show you that F1 goes in cycles and the team with the best head start in the design phase will come on top. No team can win indefinitely, and the historical and statistical data have consistently shown that. Then add the effect of constant linear development amongst ALL teams and the top team will remain at or near the top - if team B improves car by "delta", top team A generally improves car by same "delta" or thereabouts. If Team A has good baseline to develop, it becomes 3xDelta more difficult for team B to overcome delta B + delta A + new delta. Then again, this is just the first race of the season. Still, statistically this doesn't bode well for Mercedes. Remember, they almost came in 5th last weekend. That's 5 deltas to overcome. Russel admitted that a solution wouldn't be found until a few races in. Ouch!
Realistically I think the last minute turn-around concerning the sidepods, and the virtual-excellent results Mercedes found on the wind tunnel, lead them to a very risky gamble too close to the beginning of the championship. Don’t know if Mercedes were to do better to revert to the sidepods they used in Barcelona. On the other side, maybe they found that the Barcelona sidepods and overall balance was not good enough and decided to radically change them so they could gain the advantage they found to be lacking. Not a very nice position this team finds itself at this time of events. And Tottos comment on cutting the rear wing with a chain saw only shows the frustration they feel at the moment with the car.
What about all the hype that Merc were preparing there 2022 car last year and that's where there focus was. It kind of looks like a car thrown together at the last minute.
This doesn't really sound comforting to get the challenge up ahead, he could have said we should redraw the complete car and would have been a useless statement as well.
Its certainly an innovative way in racecar design methodology. Dont think the solution is that easy, perhaps aston martin and mclaren can cut their cars in half and join the championship fight eh
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