01/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Insisting that F1 is a meritocracy, Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff says that it is up to teams to catch Red Bull rather than have the Austrian team handicapped.
Of course, his comments come at a time both his drivers have repeatedly warned that the Austrian team's domination of the sport - having won all six races thus far - threatens to damage F! and compromise its current increasing popularity, even though Mercedes had previously enjoyed an eight-season winning streak.
Furthermore, last season, Wolff was the driving force behind the infamous technical directive and this year's raising of the floor edges, both of which were intended to compromise Red Bull while benefitting its rivals, though neither appears to have halted the Austrian team's progress.
Speaking in Monaco, when asked if the sport should be looking to make further changes in a bid to slow the Red Bull steamroller, Wolff said: "F1 is a meritocracy. "It's sport, whether it is good for the show or not.
"Obviously a strong fight between ten drivers or at least two, is much better for all of us," he added, "but it is not happening, that is why you have to just accept that and work to get back there.
"They have just done a good job," he said of Red Bull, which some believe could go on to score a clean-sweep this season. "The car is fast in all conditions, the driver is at the top of his game, even on Sunday going off at times but to not DNF is a skill. You can see that he pushed, so all credit to them.
"We just need to do a better job," he admitted, "we need to catch up, find intelligent solutions. Hope that our learning slope, our development slope is steeper than theirs and eventually fight for this again.
"If we start putting in a balance of performance we will ruin this sport," he warned. "The best driver in the best car, spending the same amount of money should win the championship and if you break the rules in either you should be heavily penalised but only then. Not for doing a good job."