F1 News
Wolff warns: 'I think it’s going to be very different'
Mercedes face a big challenge in 2024, after Lewis Hamilton and George Russell's team failed to win a race in the previous Formula 1 season. Toto Wolff realises this all too well, but is cautiously positive about the first signals about the W15 from the simulator.
Wolff cautiously positive about the W15
Mercedes completely missed the mark in 2022 with the 'zeropod' concept of the W13, but decided to develop the car anyway. Wolff finally realised that that too was a wrong choice after the opening race in 2023, the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Austrian stated that the rudder was changing completely and that the car would be radically transformed.
That same year, that approach failed to deliver a victory, but for 2024, positive sounds are so far resounding. Sky Sports analyst Anthony Davidson, who is also still doing simulator work for Mercedes, indicated that the car - at least in the simulator - felt much better than a year ago.
Wolff: 'I think it’s going to be very different'
"He was driving Melbourne and he said: 'The car feels like a car for the first time in two years'," Wolff told The Telegraph. At the same time, the team boss realises that actions speak louder than words. "Obviously I would love this to correlate to the track but we’ve seen in the last two years that this was not always the case."
However, Wolff is adamant that his team will perform better in many areas this year. "I think the regulations, how they were laid out a few years ago, we interpreted them in a very conservative way. And we’ve seen other teams doing it differently. So watch this space. I think it’s going to be very different," he warns.