Toto Wolff (Mercedes) at a loss: ‘We’ve become slower because of the upgrade’

What’s going on at Mercedes? The Silver Arrows have brought a major upgrade package with them to Malaysia. It was the first major package since May. Mercedes had hoped that this extensive development package would allow them to extend their lead over the competition once again, as their rivals had made significant progress over the summer and had started to close the gap on the Silver Arrows at some circuits. But after qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, at the very latest, the question arises: what went wrong? Is the upgrade actually making Mercedes slower?

Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) drove dominantly to pole. Kimi Antonelli did have a wobble on his final lap, went off the track and had his lap time disallowed. Even so, as he said, it probably wouldn’t have been enough for pole. Antonelli finished fourth, whilst George Russell managed only eighth. A small consolation: both will start one place further up the grid due to the grid penalty imposed on Isack Hadjar (Red Bull Racing). Speaking to Sky, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff had no mince words about the performance: “Incredibly disappointing.”

Upgrade backfired

The Austrian analysed the situation bluntly: “It went exactly the opposite way to what we expected. We fitted an upgrade to the car that was supposed to make us a few tenths faster. And in the end, we’ve probably ended up a few tenths slower. Because we’ve never been that far behind before. Instead, we’ve always been more or less on a par with Max or the fastest drivers. And suddenly we’re six tenths behind. So we’ve still got some work to do.”

Wolff observes: “We’re losing out on the straights. We haven’t done that before, perhaps because we have more aerodynamic drag. We hadn’t expected that. It’s also never happened to us before that an update has gone so wrong.’ Would – not is. So is there still hope when it comes to race pace?

When asked what suggests Mercedes will be in contention for victory in Sunday’s Grand Prix, Wolff replied: “Absolutely nothing.” The tyres might last a little longer, he added. “But at the moment, we’re a bit at a loss.”

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