Toto Wolff says Mercedes need to be “careful” about setting expectations after the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Brackley-based outfit enjoyed their best weekend of the season in Budapest with George Russell scoring their first pole position of 2022 in qualifying.
In the race, however, Ferrari and Red Bull demonstrated they still have the edge over Mercedes in pure pace, and the Austrian team boss believes it is premature to say they are back at the front.
“I think we need to be careful it’s not specific to Budapest that we just landed in the perfect window,” Wolff warned.
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“The other teams, Ferrari especially in qualifying, complained about the tyres not being where they should have been. So in my personal opinion, we are still lacking to the front-runners.
“But at least we were in the same race,” he noted. “I don’t want to say now suddenly we are right bang into the game and we can win races because I don’t think that’s the case.
“I think we landed it well in Budapest on Saturday and we are reaping the results [in the race]. But I don’t think we are close enough to Ferrari and Red Bull to really fight them as yet, but lots of learning and it’s important to get it wrong also.”
Mercedes have been playing catch-up since the start of 2022 when the issues first emerged on the W13.
And as Wolff explained, overcoming those problems has left the team trailing in the all-important race to bring upgrades compared to Red Bull and Ferrari.
“Our biggest weakness from the get-go was that our car was bouncing, the famous porpoising,” Toto said. “And it meant that this was overshadowing all our development.
“We couldn’t really develop the car aerodynamically and put good updates on because the more downforce we had on the car, the worse the bouncing was.
“But I think since Barcelona we have understood better and now going into shutdown the car has no porpoising anymore. But having said that, we are missing a few months of development and this is really where we’re playing a catch-up game with the guys in front.”
Mercedes are also eagerly awaiting to see the impact of a technical directive at the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix, aimed at prohibiting floor tricks Red Bull and Ferrari were thought to be using to gain downforce.
“It will be very interesting to see what we see at Spa,” said Wolff. “Let’s see if the difference in ride height makes a difference for the teams that ride so low.
“But I no longer believe in the ‘silver bullet’, as they say, that we will then suddenly be three tenths faster than everyone else, but in any case it will be interesting.”