Too slow, unpredictable: “This car doesn’t deserve a win,” says Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff about the W14. Image: AFP
Mercedes is threatened with a season without a win in Formula 1 – for the first time in twelve years. Team boss Toto Wolff even compares the racer to a tricycle. Now there should be a radical solution.
In the Mercedes Formula 1 racing car factory, last year’s racing car stands in the entrance area. It bears the type number W13 and is one of the most unsuccessful cars that Mercedes ever built. Team boss Toto Wolff had it exhibited to warn the specialists of the former series winner: Don’t rest on your past successes! There are 111 Grands Prix won in the hybrid era since 2014, eight manufacturer titles and seven driver world championships.
Just as Wolff raged on Sunday after the São Paulo Grand Prix, the W13 will soon have had its day as a memorial. The equally failed successor model W14 would also be an option. “I can only feel sorry for you,” said Wolff, addressing his drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, “for driving such a miserable machine.” He went one better and compared the 950 hp racer with a tricycle. That sat.
