Wolff: "That's why you see shifting performance between teams"
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Mercedes started the season solidly in 2020. The first four races were won and the team started each race from pole position. Team boss Toto Wolff has announced that the team stopped developing the car 'a long time ago'.
Gap shrinks
Mercedes have only been unable to win two races in the 2020 season. At the second British Grand Prix Max Verstappen was too strong with excellent tire management and in the crazy Italian Grand Prix Pierre Gasly surprisingly emerged as the winner.
The gap in qualifying was often very large, but that is slowly shrinking. Whereas Mercedes were regularly around a second faster than Red Bull Racing in the first four races, the gap between them and Verstappen at the Nurburgring was less than 0.3 seconds.
Mercedes already working on 2021
"We finished [the updates] a long time ago, and that has always been in the past. What we looked at is a very thoroughly thought through decision, because not in every championship can you afford to close the book early. But the rules changed quite a lot for next year and in that respect, like in previous years, we decided to switch to next year's car," Wolff explained as quoted by Motorsport.com .
Red Bull said earlier that they have more upgrades to come but Mercedes are done for 2020. "This is why you can see the shifting performance between the teams. We always have a very strong start and middle of the season, and then whoever continues to develop is strong at the end," concluded Wolff.