Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has revealed that the Silver Arrows have “good things in the pipeline” to introduce in 2024, in order to hopefully reduce Red Bull’s deficit.
The Brackley-based team successfully secured second in the Constructors’ Championship last Sunday at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, following a stellar drive by George Russell.
Russell finished third at the Yas Marina Circuit to break Ferrari’s hearts, with the Italians having fallen three points short of P2 in the standings.
Lewis Hamilton had little impact on the fight for P2 in Abu Dhabi after he was eliminated in Q2, after struggling for outright pace.
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He only made up two places during the final race of 2023, much to his disappointment.
Whilst Mercedes did beat Ferrari, the big concern for the Germans is that even in P3, Russell still finished the Abu Dhabi GP just over 20 seconds behind Max Verstappen.
Hamilton, on the other hand, was 44 seconds adrift of the three-time World Champion.
Saying goodbye to the W14 is a massive blessing for Mercedes who are set to introduce a completely new concept in 2024, in an attempt to cut Red Bull’s advantage.
Things are clearly coming together for Mercedes in their two factories, with Wolff admitting that “so much new things” are going to be introduced.
“I mean we have a gap to the leaders, but the two teams in Brackley and Brixworth are so motivated, we have so much good things in the pipeline, so much new things,” Wolff said, as reported by Crash.net.
“I am in a really good place to see what’s coming together. We’ve got to take momentum from here and take that momentum into the factories.”
Regardless of how much better the W15 is than the W14, Mercedes still have a huge gap to overcome to be able to compete with Red Bull.
Wolff recognises that the Austrians advantage has become so large because they started working on the new aerodynamic regulations before everyone else, whilst Mercedes’ progress has been halted by having a car with a “fundamental problem”.
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The W14 has been dreadful to the point that neither driver has had “confidence in the car”, something Wolff knows must be resolved.
“Let’s be honest they have a gap because they got well out of the blocks with the new regulations and in order to catch up, that’s a monumental endeavour… hopefully they level off with their development and speed and we can catch up,” Wolff added.
“Our car is a fundamental problem, it’s not stable, the drivers have no confidence in the car, if we can dial that out, we can make a step forward like other teams have done.”