The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, has echoed the words of Lewis Hamilton in bluntly describing the “bitter reality” of their deficit to the Formula One championship leaders Max Verstappen and Red Bull.
After being comprehensively beaten again by Verstappen at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Wolff observed that at very best Mercedes might only be considered quick in a field of cars that excluded the Red Bulls. Verstappen won at the Hungaroring by almost 34 seconds from McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Hamilton had started on pole but was passed by Verstappen, Norris and his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri through the opening corners. The British driver came back strongly in the final stages but could still only manage fourth. He said afterwards he felt he had not been performing at his best for more than a year and insisted the result in Hungary reflected the reality that despite the pole, Mercedes were not fast enough.
Wolff felt their car’s ultimate pace was enough to have beaten the McLarens but admitted Red Bull remained in a different league to Mercedes. “We can talk it up and say we could have been or would have been second,” he said. “But that is irrelevant because you have a car in front that is 34 seconds clear and probably he was cruising for a long time. That’s the bitter reality.”
After a captivating qualifying session on Saturday in which Hamilton pipped Verstappen by three‑thousandths of a second, there was optimism a decent fight might be on the cards for Sunday. But Red Bull’s race pace, with a series of upgrades employed in Budapest, proved unmatchable. Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Pérez, also moved through the pack from ninth to finish third.
So much was the differential Wolff said that while Mercedes had some form in Hungary it was only in terms of light-heartedly comparing the rest of the field to representing F1’s feeder series.
“As surprising as it sounds in terms of pace, it was quick in terms of the rest of the world,” Wolff said. “In the F2 pack it was quick, the F1 car won by 34 seconds …”
With their 12th win in a row in Budapest on Sunday, Red Bull broke McLaren’s 35-year-old record of 11 consecutive wins in 1988. That feat was celebrated by the team principal, Christian Horner.
“To break that record from 1988, which I remember watching [Ayrton] Senna, [Alain] Prost, the great McLaren team led by Ron Dennis,” he said. “To think it has taken 35 years but we are the team to break that, particularly to think about the quality of the opposition we are competing against, is a phenomenal achievement.”
Wolff also reaffirmed that it was up to his team to do better in a season dominated by Red Bull, which – as he knows from the periods of Mercedes supremacy – is not appealing to fans.
“We just need to work better and get ourselves back into contention,” he said. “Many fans would have left frustrated after Saturday thinking that we were really close together, keen to watch what happens on Sunday and then they see one car just disappear into the sunset.”
Wolff said Mercedes would continue to push to improve this year’s car, especially given the exceptional advances McLaren have made with their most recent set of upgrades. He also confirmed work on next year’s car was proceeding apace and that the team were investigating all options in bridging the gap to Red Bull.
“We need a lot of changes in 2024,” he said. “The direction our team is developing is really quite interesting – we see opportunities and we are leaving no stone unturned, looking at every single concept. Every single concept that we have seen on other cars, whether that is powerful or not, whether this of any use for us.”
