Toto Wolff, the head of the Mercedes F1 team, isn’t too obsessed with recording the team’s excellent reliability for the 2022 season.
Mercedes F1 has won the Constructors’ title for eight consecutive years, but this year it is suffering from serious popping (porpoising phenomenon) of the new generation F1 machine, and it is out of the title battle.
Currently, Mercedes F1 is third in the Constructors’ Championship, 116 points behind Red Bull. George Russell is fourth in the drivers’ championship, 64 points behind Max Verstappen.
But the Mercedes F1 holds one record that it can be proud of. It is the only team that has not retired once on the F1 grid this season.
However, Toto Wolff, the head of the Mercedes F1 team, isn’t too excited to know that reliability records can quickly become bad records.
“It’s funny that both teams (Red Bull and Ferrari) keep stopping the car,” Toto Wolff said.
“But it can swing in the opposite direction so fast that I can’t be happy with it.”
“We’re happy with the reliability. Last year, looking at how we used the engine, we had a lot of problems with other phenomena, so we don’t want to get excited too soon.”
At Ferrari, Charles Leclerc’s engine failures in Spain and Baku proved to be very costly in the title battle with Red Bull. Carlos Sainz also had a hydraulic problem in Azerbaijan and might not avoid the reliability problem.
Ferrari’s F1 team representative Mattia Binotto considers Ferrari’s power unit to be a relatively new concept, but does not see reliability as a deciding factor in the title battle.
“Reliability is certainly important and as important as performance, but I don’t think it’s the only factor,” Mattia Binotto told Montreal.
“I think development from now to the end of the season is another issue. Budget limits and ultimately credibility.”
“The power unit has a whole new design than ever before. It’s certainly a young project that’s causing problems.”
“In addition, there are dynamo restrictions that didn’t exist in the past, so you can’t run much on the dynamo. There are restrictions, which means that the exercise is more complicated.”
Category: Category: F1 / Mercedes
