Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has waxed lyrical over Ferrari’s engine gains that have seen them rise to the top of the Constructors’ Championship standings this season. The historic Italian team struggled to maintain their usual high standards in 2020 and 2021 but now look set to rejoin the battle at the front of the order after producing the grid’s quickest car under the new technical regulations.
Ferrari managed to find plenty of power over the winter to produce the fastest engine for this year, with their progress having played a major role in helping Charles Leclerc to secure two Grand Prix victories since the beginning of the campaign. Wolff has since hailed Ferrari’s hard work by insisting that Mercedes have never been able to improve by the same margin in as little time since their return to F1 back in 2010.
“I think we’ve seen a massive jump from Ferrari from last year to this one,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1. “[They went] from probably 10kw down to 10kw up and that is something we have never achieved in the past, but if that happened all credit to them.”
It remains to be seen whether Ferrari will be able to maintain their strong early form in order to end Mercedes’ eight-year stronghold on the Constructors’ Championship title over the coming months. The Silver Arrows have been no match for the Prancing Horse since the start of pre-season testing and look set to be denied a record-breaking ninth triumph at the end of the campaign if they fail to rescue their pace as a matter of priority.
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Mercedes currently occupy second place in the standings but have been unable to lay a glove on Ferrari and Red Bull in terms of performance so far this year, while they were arguably even slower than the likes of Alpine and McLaren at last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. Wolff has already declared that Lewis Hamilton and George Russell will be outsiders for this year’s end-of-season honors but insisted that luck may swing things back in their favor over the course of the campaign as a whole.
“If we look at it from a mathematical standpoint and probability, I would probably say that the odds are eight-to-two but this is motor racing and anything can happen,” said Wolff.
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“Teams can DNF and if we unlock the potential of the car then we can arrive back in the game. So as a motor racer, I would say it is probably 40-60. As a mathematician, I would say the odds are worse against us.”
Mercedes will be desperately hoping for an improved showing at the next time of asking when F1 returns to Imola for the upcoming Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. They were forced to lose out at the hands of Max Verstappen at last year’s event and will seemingly face a tough task in downing the Dutchman and Leclerc based on their current pace when the action gets underway next weekend.
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