Toto Wolff reveals Mercedes' 'necessary evil' to avoid F1 slump

Mercedes

Wolff reveals Mercedes' 'necessary evil' to avoid F1 slump

Will Mercedes bounce back?

Ewan Gale

Wednesday 30 November 2022 07:30

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes the struggles over the past F1 season may be a necessary evil for the team's prolonged success.

The Austrian has also revealed he has analysed the eras of once-dominant teams in order to stave off a multi-season slump.

The Silver Arrows was the all-powerful force in F1 from 2014 until last season when Max Verstappen clinched his maiden drivers' title.

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Mercedes' fall from grace was confirmed this year as Red Bull ended its eight-year reign as constructors' champions, with a wretched campaign by its lofty standards which yielded only one victory as it slipped to third in the standings.

Previously, Ferrari was untouchable in the early 2000s yet has not won a title since the last of its constructors' crowns in 2008, whilst Red Bull has now only ended its drought after four consecutive double titles from 2010-13.

After declaring a staunch "no" in response to questioning whether a similar fate would befall Mercedes, Wolff was immediately asked as to why he was so certain.

"Parameters change," he replied.

"Of course, we are talking about it. We are analysing what were the reasons, in the past, that teams who dominated an era suddenly lost performance.

"You can chase it back pretty well - a change of regulation, people leaving, a tyre that changed fundamentally.

"We have the same organisation, the same capability, the same financial funding. So we are aware of that. The regulations changed, we got it wrong, but all the other pillars are still in place.

"We have to tune the systems and understand. I'm 100 percent sure this was a difficult year that was necessary for us to remotivate and re-energise the organisation.

"We won eight times in a row, more than 100 races. This has made us come back down to the ground, made us appreciate how it feels when you win in Brazil, also understand how difficult it is to recover, not from a race, because we've had that before, but from many races that were just not good enough."

Insisting his view is not on short-term memory, Wolff added: "We will be looking back in a few years and saying that was absolutely necessary.

"And my perspective is not one season, two years, my perspective is 10 years, looking back 10 years and saying 'We've been there constantly'.

"We've been respectable at times this year - we won a race, we've had 10 or more podiums, one and two in the race, we've been third on the road, and that's respectable."