F1: Our deficit to Red Bull doubled or tripled with the W14 – Wolff

–by Mark Cipolloni–

In F1 there are design teams that stack their office dishwasher like a Scandinavian Architect, and then there are design teams that stack their dishwasher like a raccoon on meth.

The same analogy can be used for their design processes.

Without Aldo Costa designing their cars anymore, the Mercedes F1 design team is operating like a raccoon on meth.

Now they are working on a new car concept that is likely to copy the Red Bull as much as possible.

Or will they copy the Aston Martin or Ferrari?

Whichever direction they decide, Aldo Costa won’t be designing it, so good luck with that.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff admitted he does “not think this [W14] package is going to be competitive eventually”, adding that Mercedes had given it their “best go and now we just need to all regroup and sit down with the engineers.”

“There are no holy cows,” he continued, “and we need to decide the development direction that we want to pursue, in order to be competitive, to win races.”

Wolff believes the deficit to Red Bull has doubled from what it was at the end of last season, if not “tripled”.

Asked ‘what’s next’ for Mercedes, he replied: “That’s a good question, and we will tackle it straight at the beginning of the week.

“When you look at where we were at the end of the season, where it seemed like we caught up a lot, and it was just matter of which circuits suited us and which not.

“I think we’ve almost doubled if not tripled [the deficit] to get to Red Bull. This is what we need to look at.

“Everything in between, the Ferraris, the Astons, that’s just a sideshow.”

“Everything is bad. The single-lap pace is still good, but in the race we saw the consequences and to put it bluntly, we are lacking downforce and sliding the tires and going backwards.”

Aldo Costa F1 World Championships