Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has continued his critical outlook for the 2023 Mercedes car after another poor qualifying session for the Miami GP.
Lewis Hamilton could only qualify in 13th position, while George Russell was in sixth though he was almost a second behind the Red Bull polesitter of Sergio Perez.
“I think that the car is not a nice car, and not a good car,” Wolff told the press after qualifying in Miami. “And I wouldn’t be even able to find out whether fundamentally, it’s just, it’s everywhere.
“It’s the base performance of the car, the lack of understanding of the car, it’s the whole delivery, through the whole span of activities is the car here in Miami, I would say the performance is just really bad.
“I don’t believe in miracles. But I think that the stability of the car and the predictably for the drivers is just tough.
“The car is not fast enough and we haven’t got any comprehension why that is. It’s just not acceptable.”
Mercedes car upgrade
The poor performance Mercedes have had this season could well change at the next Grand Prix – the Emilia Romagna GP – as the Silver Arrows are set to bring in a raft of upgrades.
“I think what we’re trying to do with the upgrade is to create a new baseline for us to take, question marks out of the equation,” Wolff said.
“And to say, this is not a problem now that we have gone to a different spec. And that is, for example, from suspension. We are also looking at bodywork solutions that are, let’s say, more conventional than others.
“Obviously, that will create a different outflow. So for me, it’s almost like a reset to what would have been a good start 12 months ago. And then to try to add performance to the car, at the moment it’s just the lack of understanding.
“The car should be moving forward immediately. We know what we are going to deliver in term of aerodynamic performance, and hopefully also better behaviour of the car.”
