Wolff prepared to "go up in flames" with engine upgrades

Toto Wolff has revealed that his Mercedes team are prepared to “go up in flames” to match the performance of Ferrari’s engine.

The Italian team’s engine is considered to be better than the 2018 Mercedes power unit after four years of Mercedes engine domination.

Mercedes are still top of the constructors’ standings, but they have not been as dominant this season, only leading Ferrari by ten points.

However, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is not shying away from the battle with the prancing horse, saying that they will fight the development battle as hard as they can.

“We are not living with anything,” he told ESPN. “I believe that it’s nice again to be in a situation that you’re the challenger and since 2013 we haven’t been the challenger anymore.

Wolff is so desperate to match the pace set by Ferrari that he is willing to risk engine blowouts to get there.

“We would rather go up in flames than not match the performance,” he said.

However, he does admit that a DNF could be fatal for Lewis Hamilton’s title charge. The Brit is 24 points ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, having won the last two races, in Germany and Hungary.

Wolff added: “It’s very complex and not straightforward at all. Because of the maturity of these regulations, it’s very difficult to extract more performance without harming reliability.