Toto Wolff admits Mercedes may not be competitive at the start of the new F1 season as they look to bounce back from a disappointing 2022 campaign.
Last year, Mercedes won just one race all season, with George Russell victorious in the penultimate Grand Prix in Sao Paulo. And while Wolff is confident they can compete for more race wins this year, he also warned fans to be patient.
After launching their W14 car earlier this month, Mercedes released a statement with Wolff stating the car "will eventually be competitive enough to fight at the very front of the grid".
"The entire organisation was pushing flat out last year," he said. "When we realised that the car wasn’t where we wanted it to be, we mobilised every reserve we had. That never stopped throughout the season.
"We are now getting ready to start the next season. I see so much effort, motivation, and energy in the organisation to launch a car that will eventually be competitive enough to fight at the very front of the grid."
And when quizzed on his claim the car will "eventually be competitive enough" to allow Russell and Lewis Hamilton to challenge for race wins, Wolff admitted Mercedes "don't know when" that will be.
"I was contemplating about that word for 15 minutes when we talked about the press release," he said. "Because, on one side, you want to say we will be competitive.
"On the other side, you need to stay humble and realistic so you could be saying, 'I hope that we will be competitive'. We will be combat competitive. We just don't know when. Eventually.
"I think we are on the slope that we wanted to be in terms of our performance. But then you don't know where the other ones are.
"Humility is most important, we always try to be humble. Especially after last year, we need to remind ourselves we were quite far off for a long time in the season."
