Mercedes-Red Bull "battle of giants" could cost "immense" 2022 performance - Wolff

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes every week that passes without full focus shifting to the 2022 regulation changes will cost "immense performance".

The team is locked in battle with Red Bull for this year's F1 titles, marking the first real threat to its monopoly on F1 since 2014, and making the decision on when to switch to the new breed of car being introduced next season more difficult.

Wolff was in agreement with counterpart Christian Horner over the importance of marginal gains in the quest for the title but joked: “Christian stole that sentence from Dave Brailsford [general manager of cycling team Team Ineos], the marginal gains.

"It is about marginal gains, it’s about eking out in every possible performance area, limiting DNFs, mistakes, and trying to extract every bit of performance that you have in your car and your power unit.

"That’s going to go all the way because I doubt that one of us is going to go extreme in terms of balancing the 2021 regulation versus 2022.

"You simply can’t let 2021 let go, but at the same time, every single week you lose for 2022 is going to cost you immense performance because the development slope is just much steeper than with the mature regulations that we have today."

On the current pace of each team, Wolff suggested the W12 will make up its performance deficit in qualifying.

"It’s a fight of the giants," he added. "I still have the feeling that we haven’t got the pace on Saturday, but we should, and we seem to be quicker on Sunday, and I simply love it.”

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