Toto Wolff, Mercedes' boss, evaluated that the team came out far behind the others with a lot of problems and still lacking power
Mercedes' weekend at the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Pri x was full of problems. Both drivers crashed in qualifying, Lewis Hamilton was involved in a touch at the start of the sprint race, and George Russell did the same at the start of the official race on Sunday (10). So, according to CEO and team boss Toto Wolff, Mercedes came out too far behind.
Wolff understands that Mercedes has improved a lot recently, but is still far behind Red Bull and Ferrari. However, he evaluated that without the problems he thinks it would be possible to face the Red Bull cars in Spielberg. In the end, Hamilton and Russell were third and fourth, respectively.
"We've narrowed the gap in the last two months and we understand [the car] better. We're still the third force and we're in the middle of nowhere. If we're going to take the positive from today's race, I think we could be close to Verstappen and not finish so far behind. We damaged two floors out of the three we had [with Friday's crashes]. That makes you go out late," he assessed.
"We didn't expect to be competitive here because of the nature of the track and the fact that it hasn't been a nice place for us in recent years. Paul Ricard should be okay. It's a quieter circuit, like Silverstone, with fast corners, and on paper it looks like we can perform well," he continued.
"We still lack speed on the straights and I think we have too much drag. We don't seem to have enough power, but maybe it's the altitude. The engine people will evaluate and create some improvements for the next races," he finished.
The 2022 Formula One season continues in two weeks, July 22-24, at Paul Ricard in the French Grand Prix.