Toto Wolff’s leadership tested as search for Mercedes answers begins

Mercedes’ dismal weekend in Brazil represented their last best chance of an F1 win this year, and they now face a winless season with the W14.

Having won last season’s race at Interlagos after capitalising on a poorly-executed weekend from Red Bull, the recent uptick in form from Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton in the United States and Mexico meant the Brackley team arrived in Sao Paolo as a genuine potential candidate for the win.

But a bizarrely poor weekend netted them a solitary eighth-place finish in a race where other Mercedes-customer teams were genuinely quicker, and the team are now facing the very real prospect of going without a race win for the first time since the 2011 season with the W02.

Mercedes fail to show up for Brazilian GP

Returning to the scene of their one and only victory in the ground-effect era, having clinched a 1-2 in last year’s race at Interlagos, Mercedes looked reasonable in terms of single-lap pace after claiming fifth and sixth in qualifying.

But Saturday’s sprint race showed a distinct lack of race pace and, once the lights went out for the Grand Prix, it was more of the same for Hamilton and George Russell despite quite a good start to the race.

Overcome by the Aston Martins, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, and even Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, Mercedes barely managed to hold onto positions in the top 10 – Russell’s position coming under threat from Esteban Ocon even before his retirement due to the amount of lift and coast he was having to do.

Interestingly, while Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, and Sergio Perez all found lap time to improve upon their fastest laps from 2022, Mercedes were much slower in 2023 compared to their day of glory last year. Russell’s fastest lap in 2022 was a 1:13.7, Hamilton a 1:13.9, but their quickest in 2023 was courtesy of Hamilton was a 1:14.7 – a full second slower than last year.

While obviously a simplification of things given the difference in tyre compounds and the sprint format complicating setups, the simple fact of the matter is that the W13 – as disastrous a car as it was – was quicker around Interlagos than the W14. What’s alarming for Mercedes is that they simply don’t really know why.

“It’s totally baffling. Unacceptable for all of us,” Wolff explained to media afterward.

“We are a proper structure and a solid team. That didn’t look like a solid team today. Interestingly, within three consecutive races, we finished a strong second in both of them, challenging Max. And then, a week later, you’re ending up nowhere. I believe this is just not on.”

Of course, a possible candidate for Mercedes’ underperformance is that – as has been the case at other sprint weekends – the team simply failed to nail setup during the one hour practice session on Friday before going into parc ferme conditions. But this explanation doesn’t hold much weight, according to Wolff.

“Sprint weekends generally haven’t been our strengths,” he said.

“We’re working ourselves out of problems on most weekends. The swings are on, but things are not on from being almost quickest to being eighth. For me personally, I mean, the worst weekend in 13 years.”

Did the Sprint format, and US disqualification, play a part in Mercedes’ struggles?

Two weeks ago, in the US, Mercedes were caught out by the lack of setup time when they ran the car too low at the Circuit of the Americas. This resulted in Hamilton being disqualified from second place, and Wolff admitted the W14’s performance may have been slightly affected at Interlagos due to some extra conservatism.

“Yeah, we ran the car way too high,” he said.

“You carry that on, like you say. But that wasn’t the main reason for an absolute off weekend in terms of performance. There’s something fundamentally wrong mechanically. It’s not a rear wing, and it’s not the car being slightly too high, because we’re talking a millimetre too. That is performance but it is not the explanation.”

Mercedes had appeared to be on a genuine upward trend throughout 2023, having abandoned their zeropod concept that had proved problematic right from the get-go in 2022. A change to their technical structure to put James Allison – the architect of their dominant years – back in charge of the day-to-day development of the W14 appeared to be reaping rewards as this season has gone on. So much so, that it even led Mike Elliott – who started the year as their technical director – to quit his position as chief technical officer just days before the race in Brazil.

But the sheer confusion over the W14’s performance in Brazil has shown Mercedes that perhaps their understanding of their car, and the ground-effect concept in general, isn’t quite as advanced as they had believed.

“The development on this car is more plasters that we put on something that’s not right,” he said.

“It shows that it’s so unpredictable that it can swing either side. Being six, seven, or eight-tenths off is when you just tip over the edge and then nothing goes.

“A lot of change, but this is our route – a fundamentally different car next year. Today confirms that it’s the right thing to do.”

But Wolff admits that the fact of the matter is that there simply cannot be grounds for confidence heading into 2024. After all, 12 months ago exactly, the Interlagos weekend gave them the confidence that their previous concept was working – only for it to be the car’s one and only day in the sun.

“We have no expectations,” he said.

“We know it confirms that the trajectory of changing fundamentally is right. Last year, we came out of an Interlagos weekend and you’re absolutely on top – you’re demolishing your competition on Saturday and Sunday. That was like, ‘Are we doing the right thing by continuing with the chassis that we have?’

“Now it’s pretty clear. This feels horrible for the whole team. I wish we could start the new season by concentrating on a new car.”

But the obvious issue with showing up with a new car and concept means there’s still an awful lot of catching up to do on a team that has spent the last two years refining the concept that works – after all, without competition, it’s impossible to tell just how much Max Verstappen is holding back in reserve.

Ground effect understanding holding Mercedes’ progress back?

The intriguing thing about Mercedes’ travails in Brazil is that it is simply the latest race in a long list of Grands Prix this year in which a team has mysteriously failed to harness the inherent performance of their cars. From Aston Martin’s bizarre upgrade path that made them slower and slower, McLaren’s mirror image season, Ferrari and Mercedes’ trampolining on and off the podium – even Red Bull had a bewildering weekend when the RB19 couldn’t figure out how to turn corners in Singapore.

“When I look at our competitors, even between the cars, even Red Bull, that doesn’t get things wrong often, in Singapore the car was not competitive,” Wolff said.

“Aston Martin, within one week from being outside of the points to having a solid podium.

“McLaren first part of the season, not making it out of Q1 sometimes, now they’re hunting Max. It is sometimes a nasty surprise box for all of us. We got it today, probably as bad as some of the other teams got it.”

Approaching the end of the second season of the ground-effect era, it’s clear that even top teams like Mercedes don’t yet have a full understanding of how best to exploit the aerodynamic philosophy. Lewis Hamilton, having limped home in eighth, hypothesised that the floor “simply wasn’t working” at Interlagos – the reason for that being the case an obvious mystery.

Hamilton and Wolff share a glaring characteristic in that neither are particularly good at hiding their true feelings on how things are going. In recent weeks, both were full of buoyant optimism, having clearly believed that the direction the car has been taken in has been the correct one. Good result after good result seemed to tick off the boxes that their understanding was improving, race by race.

But that’s all been undone by Brazil. Having mastered the track with the W13, the fact the car’s performance didn’t add up this year suggests that Mercedes’ understanding is no greater than any of the other teams whose form has yoyo-ed around behind the Red Bulls.

As a result, it leads to the obvious question of whether Mercedes – or anyone else – can indeed make the step to reel in Red Bull before the chassis changes coming in 2026. While Milton Keynes may have been caught out in Singapore, the evidence is there that their knowledge – headed by the legendary Adrian Newey – continues to eclipse that of the befuddled teams behind.

Certainly, having expressed more and more optimism in recent weeks about being able to challenge more strongly next year, Hamilton admitted that he believes the game is up after finishing almost a lap behind at Interlagos – a result that, even in isolation, proves a championship challenge might remain a step too far once again next year.

“Ultimately, all I can do is try to remain optimistic,” he said.

“The Red Bull, I think, is so far away. I think they’re probably going to be very clear for the next couple of years.”

At the beginning of the hybrid era in 2014, and for several years afterward, Mercedes enjoyed a spell of domination thanks to their imperious power unit advantage – an advantage that was slowly but surely melted away by others until finally being toppled in 2021 as Red Bull and Honda finally matched the power unit and chassis offering of Mercedes.

But, while F1 2014-21 may have been a formula largely dominated by the power unit, the turn to ground-effect under the new chassis regulations resulted in an emphasis on aerodynamics to a much greater extent. This has resulted in the balance of power completely shifting away from Mercedes and into the arms of the awaiting Red Bull – a team who have very rarely failed to deliver on the aero front, even in the years where their underpowered Renault engine disappointed.

Mercedes simply doesn’t appear to have the strength of knowledge in this area that Red Bull – under Newey and Enrico Balbo (ironically, former aero head at Mercedes between 2014 and ’17) – and McLaren – under the esteemed Pedro Prodromou – are currently enjoying.

With Elliott having already fallen on his sword for the W13 and W14, Allison has at least a year or two before pressure might begin to build on his shoulders, but it’s the current aero chiefs at Mercedes who may feel the spotlight intensifying if the W15 proves as enigmatic as this year’s car. Gioacchino Vino and Jarrod Murphy head the aero side of things for Mercedes – both highly experienced engineers and designers – but perhaps lacking the old-school wisdom that their counterparts at Red Bull and McLaren have.

The fact that the likes of Aston Martin and McLaren – using the same power unit – were so much quicker than the W14 is perhaps the biggest indicator of all that the Mercedes chassis and aero simply is not quite up to scratch, particularly now that Aston Martin have rolled back on their upgrades to a previous spec.

This is perhaps the greatest test of Toto Wolff’s leadership that the Austrian has ever faced during his 10+ years in charge at Brackley. While 2023 may yet yield Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton the runner-up spot, it is more down to the inadequacies of other drivers and their overall operational sharpness that is keeping them in the game.

But the runner-up spot is first of the losers and, certainly, based on Brazil, Mercedes are no closer to toppling Red Bull and Verstappen to deliver Hamilton his record-breaking eighth title than they were 12 months ago.

And, based on their faces following the chequered flag in Brazil, both Wolff and Hamilton reached that realisation during the long 71-laps of Interlagos…

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