Toto Wolff believes Red Bull will still be Formula 1 title favourites in 2023, despite his Mercedes squad's efforts to catch up. Having won the last eight Constructors' Championships and seven of the Drivers' crowns in that period, Mercedes will be defeated in both in 2022. Max Verstappen has already wrapped up the Drivers', with Red Bull set to take their first title since 2013 should they out-score Ferrari by 17 points in the United States Grand Prix. Mercedes fumbled its car design, with the W13 being prone to porpoising, a lack of power and high drag. It means for the first time since 2011, Mercedes are facing a winless season in F1 - and the first of his entire career for lead driver Lewis Hamilton. The team are aware of a fundamental problem with the W13 which cannot be fixed in-season, so with attention turning to the W14 for 2023, Wolff still believes Red Bull will be favourites.
Wolff on Red Bull
"Obviously, we have missed a lot of development time to find out about bouncing and purposing and all these things," Wolff explained in an interview with Channel 4. "So it's clear that Red Bull in a very favourable position, not only for this year, but also for the start of next year. "But having said that, if we were to continue our understanding and development of the car, I think we can catch up quickly. "And this is a 'learning on the job' exercise at the moment. "Our simulations don't always give us the right results, to what the car is going to do on track, but that's what makes it interesting."
Wolff sanguine about defeat
With the end coming for Mercedes' period of dominance, Wolff is sanguine about it, simply believing the team did not do a good job with the new ground-effect regulations. "We've talked about over the last few years every series ends one day, there is no team [in any sport] that is winning every single championship over its lifetime. And that has happened," he said. "It has happened because we got the physics wrong. There's not nothing mystical about it, suddenly, we have great people, equipment infrastructure, financial resource. "What we got wrong was just how the car works, but that gives us confidence to sort it out. "In terms of losing, I think it's important to acknowledge that we just haven't just we haven't done a good enough job, and the guys over in Milton Keynes and Maranello have done. "Ferrari, in my opinion was until the summer break the quickest car, but they haven't been able to translate that into points. "We are third on the road, it's not misery, it's still respectable, because we could have come out further back. "But now we just we just need to sort it out. "We are eager to be part of the very front fighting for race wins, and fighting for a championship. "There is no sense of entitlement for us to win every single championship because that would be foolish."
Most read
