Mercedes have had a nightmare start to the new era of Formula 1, after dominating the previous decade with Lewis Hamilton.
The Silver Arrows have been the team to beat in recent years and they were expected to come flying out the blocks and continue their dominance under the new regulations that came into effect at the start of the year.
No one would have expected it to have gone the way it has however, with Mercedes stumbling to a third placed finish in the championship, looking uncompetitive when compared to Ferrari and Red Bull for the majority of the season.
Toto Wolff has suggested that the team only has themselves to blame for their slow start to the new era, claiming that they simply did not do a good enough job creating their car.
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“It was our own fault, the others just did a better job with the new regulations that we did,”’ admitted the Austrian.
“In our case, it was the car, so it’s up to us to fix that.
“Everything else is stable with us – the team, the drivers, the technology.”
The team principal has revealed that it took Mercedes nearly half the season to solve their porpoising issue, which was causing their drivers extreme amounts of pain in the early stages of the season.
The time that was allocated to stopping the bouncing was time that other teams spent improving their car, which helps to explain why Mercedes fell so far behind in the development race.
Wolff has suggested that his team’s dominance over the past decade is unlikely to be repeated, as the cost cap introduced by the FIA alongside the allocation of wind tunnel testing time now being scaled down based on finishing position looks to create a more competitive grid.
“The cost cap will compress the field and bring us opponents who are not out opponents today,” he explained.
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“I don’t think eight titles in a row will be possible again.”
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have both been very outspoken in a recent interview about their ‘hatred’ for the W13, while Wolff has confirmed that the car will be on show in the reception of their headquarters to remind staff how bad things can get.
The team are confident of giving their drivers a car more capable of challenging Red Bull and Ferrari next year, which will come as music to the ears of Hamilton as he hunts for his record breaking eighth world title.