Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes the team has made progress with its 2024 Formula 1 car at the Japanese Grand Prix based on the struggles it endured last season.
Mercedes has encountered a harrowing opening to the latest season with an overhauled car concept that has proven to be unpredictable due to a slim operating window.
The German marque’s W15 also retains an inherent high-speed cornering deficit as a result of a correlation problem that was touted to be exposed at the Suzuka circuit.
But despite expectations of a challenging weekend, Lewis Hamilton was enthused with his car’s handling at the track compared to six months ago with its W14 predecessor.
The Briton qualified seventh but his best time was within three-tenths of third-placed Lando Norris, who trailed the Red Bull drivers that locked out the front row of the grid.
Although Wolff admits the “headline result is not great”, he believes the tight margins across the field disguised the encouragement Mercedes can take from its showing.
“The headline result of P7 and P9 is not great,” Wolff admitted.
“The positive though is that we are not too far off the second row, just one-tenth or so, at a track that was one of, if not the worst, last year.
“We seem to have taken a step in the right direction with the car this weekend.
“Everyone is pushing so hard to understand more about the W15 and how we can build on the platform we have. To see progress is therefore encouraging.”
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin concurred with Wolff’s comments, citing that the team has made inroads in reducing its arrears to Red Bull.
“We headed to Japan focused on trying to make the car more consistent and drivable over the weekend,” he said. “Pleasingly, it looks like we’ve made some progress in that regard.”
“The reality at the moment though is we are the wrong side of a tight bunch of cars and need to find some more performance.”
“Despite that, we have halved our gap to pole position from last year and can also be encouraged by the fact that even small steps forward will move us up the grid.”
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s race, Wolff is anticipating a close battle behind Red Bull, with Norris set to lead the chase to claim the final podium spot for McLaren.
“It is difficult to predict what tomorrow’s race will look like,” he added. “The pack behind Red Bull is very tight so we will see what we can do.
“The long run data from Friday, and today’s qualifying session, shows that it could be close.
“We will look to maximise everything we do and the package we have to score the best result possible.”
