Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said the team could benefit from customer team McLaren’s success in winning the constructors’ championship despite the factory team’s loss.
McLaren wrapped up their second consecutive title in Singapore, although George Russell ensured victory for Mercedes. It was Mercedes’ second win this year, having enjoyed comfortable wins over customer teams over the past two seasons, but Wolff said McLaren’s example proves that the power unit is not the team’s weakness given its lack of performance.
“I think there are benefits to this kind of internal competition,” Wolff said. “We avoid discussing whether the power unit is one of the root causes of the chassis not being as good. Are we putting too much torque on the tires? Is the engine driveability good? And to see teams like McLaren run away with championships over the last two years is just proof that it’s possible.”
“When you look at the car that way, I think it’s very good engineering and executed the right way. It’s definitely the benchmark for the last couple of years.”
McLaren’s title came at the weekend when Mercedes topped the constructors’ championship in Singapore, and ahead of this weekend’s double-header starting with the American Grand Prix, Wolff will be interested to see if Mercedes can maintain the form that has helped both cars achieve strong results in the past two races.
“We did well in Singapore, with George winning and Kimi (Antonelli) finishing fifth. Not only was it unexpected, but the level of performance on Saturday and Sunday showed it was no fluke,” Wolff said.
“This is the story of the season and it’s not clear which team will lead from weekend to weekend. We had a good result in Azerbaijan as well, so I’m interested to see if we can maintain the steps we took in W16 in the next race across the Americas.”
“The layout is very different from these two street circuits and the challenges are very different, so we are heading into the unknown a little bit, but that unpredictability is what makes our sport so much fun.”
Following Russell’s victory in Singapore, Mercedes moved into second place in the constructors’ championship at COTA, with a 27-point lead over Ferrari and 35 points ahead of Red Bull in the race for second place.