F1 News
Wolff expected more from Mercedes in Australia: "Not doing enough"
Toto Wolff thinks that Mercedes should be achieving more in the early stages of the 2025 Formula 1 season, saying that the W16 is "not doing enough at the moment".
Mercedes have been unable to fight at the front of the grid since the 2021 season, with the 'sidepodless' experiment in 2022 failing and putting them behind the frontrunners for a couple of seasons. However, after a few race wins in 2024, it looked like the German team were trending in the right direction, looking to make more improvements and bring more of a challenge to the 2025 season.
That looks like the case, with George Russell taking P3 at the opening race of the season at the Australian Grand Prix, with teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli finishing behind in P4 with a fine debut performance.
Wolff: "It's pretty clear what we have to do"
However, for the Austrian CEO and team boss, although there are steps forward from the German team, he is hoping for more: "[The W16], it's not doing enough at the moment. But, you can see at least it's become more predictable and we understand the car better," Wolff said to several media sources, including GPblog, in Melbourne.
However, there is more to like about the 2025 Mercedes compared to the car that was on the grid last year: "We have the car's balance now, which the previous one didn't have. And from there on, it's pretty clear what we have to do to extract more performance. On a single lap, we look solid, and I think that the gap is much closer, and on the long runs or race performances too. We just need to understand that," Wolff concluded.
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