Toto Wolff names major benefit to 'highly unusual' Mercedes F1 experiment

Toto Wolff believes Mercedes' "highly unusual" experiment in splitting the upgrades on its cars at the Singapore Grand Prix has worked as intended.

At Marina Bay, Mercedes elected to run its W17 machine in two different specifications for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, with Russell reverting to the old-spec car whilst Antonelli carried the upgrades first introduced in Bahrain. 

Mercedes struggled at Sepang with the new parts on the car in its first big upgrade since Canada, with the decision taken to try to understand where the package was harming the car, with the unusual decision of splitting the specs in Singapore.

After his third-place finish, which has moved him to the cusp of the title, Antonelli felt that a narrow "window" had been found on the upgraded spec, with Wolff confirming this, despite major questions remaining. 

"When we entered the weekend, we made the highly unusual, or let's say, the unusual move in a cutting-edge technology business to have two different cars," Wolff explained to media, including RacingNews365.

"Because we felt we needed to accelerate our learning curve and that was good, and fundamentally, looking back at the weekend, I think this new car needs a very different set-up philosophy than the previous car, and this is what we're learning at the moment.

"Was it an easy car? I don't think it was. Does it have the performance we were hoping the upgrade would bring? I don't think so yet, but it was a step in the right direction.

"In Austin, we shall see if we can continue to consolidate that, and whether it has more performance, because it is crucial for development direction for next year."

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Mercedes' 'clever groups'

Turning to whether the upgrades would be on both cars in Austin, Wolff signalled it would be the case.

"The latest is to probably run the new cars in Austin, and both drivers think it should have a positive effect and benefit," Wolff added.

"In terms of learning for next year, it is the right direction for us to go, but I am saying that before the clever groups come together to see if that is the direction we indeed want to go."