Toto Wolff believes that Aston Martin can act as "good inspiration" for Mercedes following the Silver Arrows' struggles in the Bahrain Grand Prix. It was a difficult race for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, with the W14 unable to match the AMR23 of Fernando Alonso. Alonso claimed the final podium position behind the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, while Hamilton and Russell finished in fifth and seventh respectively, separated by the other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll. Given the leap forwards in performance for the green cars from 2022, Wolff has been given hope that Mercedes can achieve the same level of progress.
Aston Martin offer inspiration to Mercedes
"What Aston Martin were able to achieve is a good inspiration, because they came back from two seconds off the pace to being [the] second-quickest team, probably, on the road," Wolff told media, including RacingNews365.com . "With us, everything's bad. Maybe the single-lap pace was still good. "But in the race, we saw the consequences and, to put it bluntly, we were lacking downforce. When you're lacking downforce it's sliding the tyres, [so] the tyres are going backwards."
Wolff: Mercedes couldn't have held Aston
While there were suggestions during Friday's practice sessions that Mercedes' race pace was better than their one-lap pace, Wolff denies that any changes were made to the set-up which compromised the pace in the Grand Prix. Regardless, the team boss does not believe that the squad could have beaten Aston Martin on Sunday. "I think what we did seemed to be going in the right direction, to give us more load in the overall," Wolff explained. "I think maybe we can look at [that] we opted to stay with the low downforce wing versus the high downforce wing. I think that would have helped us with [tyre] degradation, but the single-lap pace was just not there. "We took a decision and we stand fully by that decision. I don't think that we could have held the Aston Martins today, in any case."
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