Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff admits the side must climb the equivalent of “Mount Everest” to catch Red Bull in time for the start of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
Red Bull signed off a record-breaking 2023 campaign in Abu Dhabi with a 21st win of the year, ensuring that the World Champion’s RB19 car was only beaten on one occasion.
Meanwhile, Mercedes clinched second place in the Constructors’ Championship over Ferrari but ended an F1 season without a single victory for the first time since 2011.
George Russell, who ended up on the podium in third, wound up 20s behind race winner Max Verstappen, who ran a sub-optimal strategy to pursue a laps-led milestone.
Wolff has vowed that Mercedes will “leave no stone unturned” over the winter in order to ensure that it will be the main competitor to Red Bull from the outset next season.
“When you win P2 on a day like today it reminds you that you lost P1,” Wolff said. “We need to take it on the chin, be humble about it and consider today as a good day.
“Nevertheless, there is a Mount Everest to climb to catch up with Red Bull.
“I have no doubt that McLaren is going to be right in the mix next year, maybe Aston Martin, maybe others insofar as we must leave no stone unturned, which we do in Brixworth and in Brackley.
“As tough as it is to be reminded that it is just P2, it’s also a great, great opportunity to come back and strive for the stars.”
However, Wolff has pointed to the progress rival teams have made across this season to outline how there is still vast levels of performance to discover in this rules cycle.
“Red Bull has started these regulations in 2022 with a massive advantage and have been able to retain it,” Wolff said.
“We need to have a lot of respect for their achievement in the engineering side and the driver and beating them under the current regulations is against the odds, that’s clear.”
“At the same time, we have seen with McLaren an update [back in Austria] unlocked a second of lap time and with AlphaTauri coming strong at the end [of the season] and Aston Martin over the winter, there is a key to unlock dramatically more performance.”
I think us making this honest assessment that this car is never going to be good enough to fight for the championship, and we have taken the decision in spring that we have got to go back to the drawing board and come up with something new next year. But Mount Everest is in front of us.”
But Wolff has tempered expectations by admitting he’s “never in my life felt optimistic about anything” and securing second this year left him with a “bittersweet feeling”.
Asked if he would have preferred to be in Ferrari’s situation with a position less in the championship but a win to its name, Wolff answered: “Both losers. It’s better P2 for the money and the bonuses for the people. It’s better P3 for the wind tunnel time we would have had 40% more than Red Bull.
“You can’t get what you want, so you want the bonuses and the more wind tunnel time.”
