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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted that the team could delay introducing its new engine upgrade. The Austrian has expressed surprise over rivals Ferrari's turn in pace, and says that the German squad is not quite sure how the Maranello team has made such impressive gains.
Wolff previously claimed that Mercedes was losing half a second to Ferrari on the straights. As it looks to close in on the Italian team in terms of engine performance, Wolff says that more time is simply needed, and has backed its head of engine development Andy Cowell to deliver what is required.
"Andy’s a super-motivated guy. All his lieutenants and troops are. We see what can be achieved and what needs to be achieved. At the moment we are in an interesting phase on the third engine and we are trying to extrapolate how much performance gain we can find until Spa and Monza. Only once we know that number we will be able to decide whether we need to postpone or do something else."
But Wolff says that catching up to Ferrari will be no easy task. When asked if Mercedes was capable of such a thing, he said: "It’s very complex and not straightforward at all.
"Because of the maturity of these regulations it’s very difficult to extract additional performance without harming reliability. Every experiment you do that potentially adds performance needs to be validated against reliability because a DNF is going to kill you in the championship much more than the ultimate, last tenth of performance. So it’s very complex to extract more performance in a level that we need to be sufficient. But it’s a challenging target."
Fergal Walsh
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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Replies (3)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Is it an attempt to keep suspense up until they release it and steamroll Ferrari, or are they legit concerned about the quality of this upgrade?
RogerF1
Posts: 501
Didn’t the last upgrade part way in introduce some reliability issues? Toto is spot on to not want a DNF or two. But then Merc are past masters at sand bagging.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I think it did, but that doesnt mean the same would apply for the next upgrade. Either way, Mercedes are probably still ahead. As you say, Merc' are great at sandbagging, and they have more allocations left than Ferrari if memory serves.