In an interview with the team’s press service, Mercedes manager Toto Wolff summarized the first half of the 2022 season and promised to add more after the summer break.
Q: How do you rate the team’s performance this season?
Toto Wolff: The start of the season was not particularly good – there is no other way to say it. When you win a title in December and can’t fight for first positions four months later, it’s frustrating.
Then our season developed like a roller coaster – we climbed to the podium in almost every race. We looked very strong in the races, but our car was constantly short of speed in qualifying, which left us too far behind. We’re trying to figure out what this is about. I hope that in the second half of the season we will improve in qualifying and that we can fight for victories.
Q: What did the team do well?
Toto Wolff: Actually, there weren’t many things we did well, since we were going to fight for the title, but you have to think positively. I have said repeatedly in the past that we learn the most from the days of failure, and that is exactly what is happening now.
Our car is very hard to work with – for a while it didn’t seem to get any better at all. However, what we have learned now will help us for many years to come. We continue to develop our team, we look forward to two years, five years, ten years. And from this point of view, all the difficulties of this season will help us to get better in the long run.
Q: What can the team do better?
Toto Wolff: The weak side of our car was the build-up on the straights, which brought all our development to a halt. We couldn’t develop the aerodynamics of the car and bring updates because the more we increased the downforce, the stronger the build-up became. However, after the stage in Barcelona, we started to understand the car better and save it from the build-up, but we lost some months of development, and now we have to catch up with the leaders.
Question: At the expense of you can add in the second half of the season?
Toto Wolff: We should always try to add and move forward. In recent years we had a dominant car that allowed us to win eight titles in a row. We need to constantly evolve to stay competitive – we need to do this in 2022 and beyond. The results do not meet our expectations. Our car is third fastest, but that’s not our goal.
At the same time, we should not take the results for granted, because the thought that you are assured of a victory is inevitably thrown back. We respect competitors who are doing great, but we are very clear about our goals – to return to the battle for first places, for race wins and in the battle for the title.
Q: How important is the support of the fans to the team?
Toto Wolff: We get great support from the fans. We had a difficult end to last season and a difficult start to this season, but we feel a strong emotional connection with the fans. We see and feel the support – not only in social networks, but also in the stands. We will definitely be back and give our fans the opportunity to celebrate victories in races and championships.
Source: F1 News
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