Toto Wolff makes honest Mercedes confession as Lewis Hamilton tipped for further woes
Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes endured a testing end to the 2023 season, and next year could bring more of the same.
Toto Wolff has admitted that beating Red Bull in either championship next season would be ‘against the odds’. The reigning constructor champions have been able to send resources towards their 2024 challenger throughout the season, as has been the extent of their pace advantage over the rest of the field in 2023.
Mercedes ended the season in second place in the Constructors’ Championship standings after beating rivals Ferrari by three points thanks to George Russell’s heroics at the final race in Abu Dhabi. However, this came as little consolation to the eight-time champions given the size of the deficit to Red Bull at the top.
Christian Horner’s team – now back-to-back champions – finished with a record-breaking 860 points after winning all but one of the 22 Grands Prix held in 2023. That tally represented more than double that of second-placed Mercedes.
Hamilton, meanwhile, finished best of the rest in P3 in the Drivers’ Championship but was unable to claim a single race victory as his drought was extended beyond the two-year mark. The seven-time world champion finished 341 points behind Max Verstappen, who clinched his third successive title in style.
“Red Bull started these regulations in 2022 with a massive advantage and was able to maintain it,” Wolff said after the season finale in Abu Dhabi. “You got to have a lot of respect for their achievement from the engineering side and the driver. Beating them under the current regulations is against the odds, that’s clear.”
Despite this cautious approach to next season’s development possibilities, there is some hope for the Silver Arrows. McLaren started the 2023 season with the slowest car on the grid in Bahrain, but by the end of the campaign in Abu Dhabi, they had climbed to fourth in the standings and were a regular presence on the podium.
This was something that Wolff noted too, adding: “At the same time, we’ve seen with McLaren, an update unlocked a second in lap time or AlphaTauri coming strong at the end and Aston Martin over the winter.
