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Toto Wolff Says Mercedes-AMG Have “Halved the Gap” to Red Bull and Ferrari in F1

According to Mercedes-AMG F1 team boss Toto Wolff, his drivers could have matched Max Verstappen’s pace in Austria, had neither of them crashed in qualifying. The German outfit is now looking forward to the French Grand Prix, where they once again expect to be strong.
Mercedes-AMG F1 Team 7 photos
Photo: LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Mercedes-AMG F1 TeamMercedes-AMG F1 TeamMercedes-AMG F1 TeamMercedes-AMG F1 TeamMercedes-AMG F1 TeamMercedes-AMG F1 Team
After watching Hamilton and Russell finish third and fourth, respectively, in Austria, Wolff went on to discuss just how far his team has come over the past few months, without sounding particularly satisfied with Mercedes’ position on the grid.

“It’s just that we are missing a few tenths here and there, I think we’ve halved the gap over the last few months, we understand better, but we’re still third, fourth – we're somewhere right in the middle of nowhere.”

“But I would say if I tried to pick the positives, in race pace today, if we would have – which we didn’t - started right in the top six, probably we could’ve held on to Max [Verstappen] and not been so far away.”

In France, Mercedes will once again hope that a smooth surface track with fast corners will help temper some of the W13 issues.

“Paul Ricard should be okay,” added Wolff. “It’s a smooth circuit, a little bit like Silverstone, fast corners, and on paper at least it looks like we can have a good performance there.”

“We are starting to see we are chipping away performance from the leaders, which is good, but we find ourselves in a situation which we have always discussed, which is, one day, after eight consecutive titles, that series is going to break, and we want to make it a blip and not some kind of long cycle.”

Interestingly enough, Mercedes isn’t that far away from Ferrari, points-wise, in the 2022 Constructor Standings. The Scuderia trails Red Bull with 303 points, while Mercedes ranks third with 237 points. It’s certainly not an insurmountable gap.
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About the author: Sergiu Tudose
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Sergiu got to experience both American and European car "scenes" at an early age (his father drove a Ford Fiesta XR2 supermini in the 80s). After spending over 15 years at local and international auto publications, he's starting to appreciate comfort behind the wheel more than raw power and acceleration.
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