Wolff demands improvement as Mercedes trend flips

Toto Wolff is keen to see Mercedes "bolt a car together" after a season-long trend flipped during the Chinese Grand Prix.

The W15 machine had what Wolff called a "fundamental" problem in high-speed corners following the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but the slow-speed package was deemed good, with progress seemingly being made to rectify that problem in Japan when Lewis Hamilton and George Russell enjoyed a strong Friday.

However, in China, Wolff described how the team's trend flipped to have strong pace in the high-speed sections of track before losing time in the hairpins and the long opening sequence of corners.

It was an equation that he felt left the team "back at zero."

Mercedes struggles flipped

"I think we absolutely achieved that, in the high-speed [corners]," Wolff told media including RacingNews365 when asked if the team needed to find more downforce across the board.

"We were super competitive also in Suzuka in the esses, it was day and night to what we had before and the drivers were speaking about it being the best car that they had had in the last two-and-a-half years.

"But then, [in China], we didn't really perform in the low speed.

"We gained half-a-second in the high-speed, but lost half-a-second in the low speed, and that equation means you are back at zero.

"It is something that we need to improve, we are beyond the point of understanding, we just need to improve that is what it needs to come to.

"We have all the facts on the table, we know what we tweaked in order to solve the high-speed and we know where the car was before to be quick in the slow-speed.

"Now we just need to bolt a car together that does both of them - and we've seen those moments of performance, but overall, we're just not good enough at this stage."