Wolff acknowledges Jeddah's different challenge, but: 'We aim for a podium'

Mercedes' team principal and CEO, Toto Wolff, looks ahead to the F1 race weekend in Saudi Arabia, and despite the unpredictability of the current hierarchy in the series, the Austrian its sights on yet another podium finish.

It would be their fourth top three finish of the season, should they succeed. Last week out in Sakhir, George Russell scored a grand third podium in four races, as Wolff himself notes in Mercedes' preview of the F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Mercedes works hard to avoid a repeat of the F1 Bahrain GP reliability issues

"Bahrain was an eventful race. George battled through several failures on his car to take P2 along with his, and the team's, third podium of the season. It was a superb drive from him under significant pressure, aided by the calm troubleshooting input from the team."

In the final stages of the F1 race in Bahrain, Russell's car, the #63, was suddenly stricken by a brake by wire failure that affected the electronics system of the W16.

"We are hard at work to understand what caused the issues we had in order to avoid a repeat in the future."

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F1 race in Bahrain, necessary step in Antonelli's development

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes' rookie driver, had a poor start, but as he was making headway, Mercedes decided to put him on an alternate strategy which was upended by an unexpected Safety Car, however, according to Wolff, the tough race in Bahrain was important for the young driver's progression.

"For Kimi, Bahrain was an important part of the learning curve. He showed through the weekend that he had the pace to challenge for the top-five. He found himself out of position on the opening lap though and, as he fought back in the opening two stints, his tyres suffered. Switching to a different strategy, he was then unfortunate with the timing of the Safety Car and our choices didn't give him the chance to fight back to the points.

"It has been easy to forget that Kimi is in the very earliest stages of his F1 career given his performances so far. Bahrain will prove an important milestone in his continued development."

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Mercedes aims for its 4th podium of the 2025 F1 season

An intense three race weekends on the trot will come to an end with the last leg of the triple header in Jeddah: the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Austrian sets the teams sights on a lofty target amid the different challenge the thrilling and fast layout of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit poses, and the unpredictability of F1's hierarchical order.

"We now head to Saudi Arabia for the final race in this triple-header. Although we were encouraged by our performance in Bahrain, Jeddah poses a different challenge. We go from a rear-limited track to one that is more front-limited, with several high and medium-speed sections. It would be foolish to try and predict the likely order but we will be aiming to fight for the podium once again."