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Italian Grand Prix 2022

Wolff jokes Mercedes will take rear wing off for Monza

The Mercedes boss came up with an extreme way of boosting performance for the Italian Grand Prix.

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To news overview © Russell Hamilton Zandvoort

Toto Wolff has joked that Mercedes will remove its rear wing to boost Formula 1 performance at the upcoming Italian Grand Prix.

Despite winning 15 of the last 16 titles, Mercedes have struggled with a plethora of problems in 2022 from porpoising to a lack of straight line speed.

Monza, known as the 'Temple of Speed' has some of the highest speeds on the F1 calendar, with Lewis Hamilton setting the outright fastest lap in F1 history in qualifying for the 2020 Italian Grand Prix at 164.267mph.

To combat this, Wolff came up with an extreme solution.

"We're thinking about removing the rear wing overall, to be less vulnerable on the straight," Wolff told media including RacingNews365.com.

"I mean, we have a barn door of a car with too much drag, and [with] downforce where we really don't need it.

"That is something we wish we can change quickly.

"That's for next year, and we're learning the hard way at the moment.

And I believe that on some tracks, especially in qualifying that that will bite us.

"The races look better, like you've seen in Spa that there wasn't such a big differential on the straight."

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F1 2022 Italian Grand Prix RN365 News dossier

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