Toto Wolff says Mercedes didn't understand the W13's issues early in the F1 season
- Heinrich Griessel
- 21 September 2022
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has revealed that the team wasn't equipped to diagnose the W13's problems properly when the 2022 F1 season kicked off.
The Brackley-based outfit made an underwhelming start to the current campaign and are still in the hunt for their first win of the year.
They did, however, show marked improvements in performance over the last few races, thanks to critical upgrades to their W13.
Wolff has explained that the problems were unfortunately spotted a bit too late, as they didn't quite have the understanding of their own designs from the get-go and had to learn the hard way.
Now Mercedes are facing a pivotal period, according to their German team principal, as they aim to develop a stronger package for the 2023 season.
"We lacked the tools, the simulations and the understanding in uncovering the problems that we created, with the way the car was developed," said Wolff, as quoted by Motorsport.
"We couldn't run it where we wanted to run it aerodynamically, and mechanically it was never in the sweet spot. It took us months to undo some of the steps we've done.
"So it's not that I believe we've discovered the Holy Grail and we understand everything and it's going to be a blast next year.
"But this is now a crucial period: literally over the next one to two months we need, with a certain degree of precision, to understand what needs to be done for next year."
