TOTO WOLFF admits Mercedes may be forced to SCRAP their new Formula One car if they want to win titles again.
Lewis Hamilton’s boss delivered the damning verdict after world champion Max Verstappen stormed to pole for Sunday’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix — then declared his Red Bull can go much faster.
And Wolff concedes he may have to “fire myself” if Mercedes cannot solve their problems.
Hamilton could only qualify seventh, with Merc team-mate George Russell sixth. And chief Wolff confessed: “I don’t think this package is going to be competitive.
“We gave it our best over the winter and now we need to regroup, sit down with the engineers — there are no holy cows — and decide what development direction we want to pursue in order to win races.
“The moment comes when the stopwatch showed we are not good enough.”
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Hamilton had earlier expressed his doubts about Merc’s 2023 car.
And when fellow Brit Russell was asked by SunSport if he was confident in the design, he replied: “The honest answer is I don’t know.
“We’ve probably got to a point where we do need to try something different.”
In previous years, the Brackley-based team would have been able to spend their way out of trouble and design a completely new car.
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But now they are hamstrung by F1’s strict cost-cap rules.
The budget has dropped this season — set at £111million — leaving Wolff facing a massive headache.
Last year’s car was also beset with “bouncing” problems, as Hamilton failed to win a single GP for the first time.
But Wolff added: “It is not like last year when you score many podiums and eventually you get there. We now need to look at which decisions we need to make.
“In this team we blame the problem, not the person, at the end I have responsibilities — and I’d need to fire myself if I want to do something.
“We got it wrong last year, we thought we could fix it by sticking to this concept of car and it didn’t work out.
“We need to switch our focus on what we believe can be the right direction.
“We need to sort it out and whether that is sticking bigger sidepods on the car, is a different question.
“We started last year with six-tenths deficit and we started this year also with six-tenths and that is the reality.
“Motor racing is crazy. I don’t know what is going to happen this year, we may find a silver bullet next week and unlock five tenths in the car — but I haven’t seen any silver bullets before.
“We just need to have a car that is able to make us fight for an eighth championship.”
Verstappen and Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez will line up ominously on the front row of the grid, with both Ferraris behind them.
Even Aston Martin — one of Mercedes’ customer teams — proved to have a quicker car, as Spaniard Fernando Alonso qualified in fifth.
Russell claimed Mercedes’ sole GP victory last season, yet the team decided to evolve their concept rather than start from scratch — despite seeing rivals Red Bull adopt a different sidepod design to win 17 of last year’s 22 rounds.
Verstappen’s 21st career pole yesterday is further proof that his Red Bull is the true class of the F1 field.
Wolff added: “Look at the pecking order, catching Red Bull is not realistic.”
The Austrian’s comments will come as a major blow to Hamilton, 38, and his quest for a record eighth world title.
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Hamilton is entering the final season of his £40million-a-year deal but earlier this week he said he has no plans to retire, even if Mercedes fail to deliver him a winning machine.
Wolff said: “If I need to push him around the track to get the eighth, I will.”
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
