Toto Wolff at F1 British Grand Prix: Mercedes tried the Red Bull concept in wind tunnel - but it didn’t work
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen continued to 🥂dominate in qualifying at the F1 British Grand Prix but McLaren significantly made huge strides after introducing their own upgrꦐade package.
“It’s a wake-up call for us,” said Lewis Hamilton, who qualified in seventh, about McLaren, whose driver Lando Norris is on the fro꧙nt row.
“If you just put i🌞t alongside a Red Bull, it looks very very similar down the side, so it’s working,” Hamilton noted.
Wolff reacted: “I think from what you see from the outside, which is only half of the information, is tꦺhat the car looks like a Red Bull.&nb𝔍sp;
“As a matter of fact, to💖 be honest, it doesn’t matter, because only the stopwatch counts.
“This is what I guess Lewis was referring to, because🧸 this des🍎ign seems to be a good direction.
“But it is easier said than done and each of us had bodywork 🧔that looked like the Red Bull in the [wind] tunnel and it didn’t come in up in performance.
“So🐟 you have got to leave no stone unturned and maybe do it again because another team has just found a second in performance.”
Mercedes trusted their radical 'zeropod' concept at the start of this season but have sinced moved away from it, closer to the direction w🌠hich Red Bull have found joy with, and which McLaren are replicating.
Wolff insisted that the newfound pecking order on the Silverstone starting grid is proof that the current regulations are work꧒ing.
“It’s exactly that, and I think we have all been part of and active in design🍷ing regulations that would allow over time smaller teams to catch up and le♔vel the playing field,” he said.
“If you look at Alex Albon on a single lap, their performance is right there and with Aston coming back, and McLar🐓en, it’s what we wanted.
“If you take now♍ Max out of the equation, having said that he is 0.4s quicker than the top eight drivers on a 90-second lap, so that is not hug🌌e chunks any more everybody else is within 0.2s.
“From P2 to P9 is 0.2s, so it showꦡs us that the regulations work. Coming back to us, that is then tough, but we knew that.”
Jam🌄es was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade coverin♑g everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
