Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff admits that the team's current difficulties have made him even more aware of how much he misses Niki Lauda.

With the season barely begun its all hands on deck at Brackley as the German team admits it got it wrong and sets about recovering lost ground as quickly as possible.

The struggles of last season and again this year have Wolff missing his 'rock', Niki Lauda, with his 'no-nonsense', 'can do' approach.

"Niki's missed all those years because Niki always simplified things to really what mattered," said Wolff when asked if the current situation has highlighted how much the three-time world champion is missed at Mercedes.

"I'm having to think what would he have said, and how would he have positioned things," he added, "the two of us worked well together in that sense that sometimes oversimplification can lead you straight to the results.

"But there are lots of nuances," he continued. "This is a technical sport, so maybe my role was to translate it in a way that we actually were able to execute it in the car design. But this is very simple: the stopwatch never lies, and we see on the data where we are missing and that needs to be corrected."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by alvarezh3, 28/03/2023 7:24

"@ trackrecords

"But we're not. 2 GP and it's Max, Perez and Alonso only."

True, but it's just the beginning, lets be hopefull the future brings us different competitors. :-)"

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2. Posted by Chester, 27/03/2023 13:09

"And why, after 8 years of turbo-hybrid era domination by Mercedes, would we want an inadvertent/on-purpose Aston Martin plan left to Mercedes?

Are they entitled to it??? This suggestion boggles my mind. This is sport?"

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3. Posted by trackrecords, 27/03/2023 9:46

"@ alvarezh3
But we're not. 2 GP and it's Max, Perez and Alonso only. Don't forget that the best races of 2022 were when Max's car was ailing.
What we really need is for each GP, a team is chosen for Newey to "breathe on" their car (yes, I know it's a simplistic view, but imagine the concept) to improve them to a level, if not equal to the Red Bulls, but enough to make the point scorers less predictable.
Also as previously, Force India was alleged to be a pink Mercedes - and Aston Martin use the Mercedes wind tunnel. Can't an Aston Martin engineer, inadvertently, leave a Aston Martin plans flash drive at Mercedes - and Lewis and George have a black Aston Martin for the rest of 2023..."

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4. Posted by alvarezh3, 26/03/2023 20:50

"@ JR Martin

A very important thing:

Whatever the FIA decides to do (if ever) on this subject, it is of upmost importance to keep in mind that the intention is to help the bottom teams become competitive, the measure(s) should never be intended to penalize the top runners."

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5. Posted by alvarezh3, 26/03/2023 19:43

"@ JR Martin

Although your proposal could be effective, it would force the low finishing teams to go out and procure the funds which adds an additional degree of difficulty. What you could do is, since the top finishing teams profit the most (championship money from Liberty) as a proper incentive to win (and have less need for outside income from sponsors which, by itself, is an advantage), you could lower their cap value according to their finishing order, the top team being handicapped the most and a certain amount less the lower the finishing order.

You can play around with restrictions and allowances not only on the financial aspect but on the technical side also, such as, more track testing, CFD and wind tunnel time allowed for the teams at the rear of the grid.

The best solution would be a combination of the above elements plus some others that most likely I have failed to mention."

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6. Posted by JR Martin, 26/03/2023 15:17

"@ alvarezh9

Allowing a team to increase their budget dependent upon their end-of-year order of finish might be a solution.

"

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7. Posted by alvarezh3, 26/03/2023 5:25

"@ Kenji

I agree totally with your assessment on the cost cap stoping M.B. from spending 50, 100, 150 millions to bring the car up to par with the competition. Meaning that the better car would not be a result of better engineering, but by the privilege of being a richer team.

It's true what our editor has expressed about the detriment of the cost cap, but at the same time, it also has its positives.

If Williams doesn't have a 300 or 400 Euros budget how can it get out of the hole and compete with M.B., R.B.R., S.F. now A.M. and tomorrow Audi. Without the cost cap it would be almost impossible for Williams to ever finish above 6th place as it would be probably very difficult for them to obtain that kind of money anytime soon.

The extremes on the cost cap -full cost cap and no cost cap- have both their inconveniences, a middle ground that would minimize the deficiencies would probably be in order."

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8. Posted by kenji, 25/03/2023 23:45

"@ Alvarezh3...Yes, you are correct. Lauda would've simply said, 'Ask Hamilton, he knows what to do. Just take his advice'. Sorted. Seriously though, Wolff should be considering stepping aside. They produced a dud last year and it appears that this year the car ,ATM, is not much better. If, as he says, the ultimate decision is his then he's either got to remove those responsible for feeding him 'dud' data, or go himself. Like others have also said, we are seeing more challenges and some different grid line up changes. That has to be good. The cost cap is working by denying teams like Mercedes from simply spending anothe $50M+ to find a solution! No more waffling Toto, it's becoming a total borefest."

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9. Posted by Fambank, 25/03/2023 19:21

"Niki is turning in his grave, with all these BS excuses that they are missing him."

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10. Posted by alvarezh3, 25/03/2023 16:29

"Too bad Toto that the stop watch won't tell you HOW to make the corrections, which is good for F1 as we are starting to see different faces on the podium. :-)"

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Crisis has Wolff missing Lauda

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