Toto Wolff: Mercedes stronger but still playing catch-up with Red Bull ahead of F1 opener in Bahrain

Toto Wolff admits Mercedes are “still playing catch-up” with Red Bull ahead of the 2023 Formula One season – but are “stronger than 12 months ago”.

Last year’s constructors’ champions Red Bull look like the team to beat again after a strong showing in pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton clocked the second-fastest time on the final day behind Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, but said afterwards the team have a “mountain to climb”.

Even though the ‘porpoising’ issues that plagued the team last year appear to have gone, it is not known whether the new W14 car can compete with Red Bull and Ferrari.

“We didn’t have the smoothest winter test in Bahrain,” said Mercedes boss Wolff.

“We had some reliability problems and struggled with the car set-up on day two.

“But the key objective was to learn about the car, and we did lots of learning. We made good progress on the final day, which gave us directions to work on in the short period between the test and this weekend’s race.

“It’s always hard to have a clear picture of competitiveness at pre-season testing – and even more so with only three days of data available.

“Our expectations were that we would likely be playing catch-up to the front, based on how last year ended. That seems to be the case so far but we will only know for sure after this weekend.”

The 2023 season starts in Bahrain this weekend, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen the defending champion.

Verstappen was the runaway winner of the drivers’ championship last year while Mercedes’ only win came in the final race in Sao Paulo.

“We are confident we have got a car we can work with and are in a stronger position than 12 months ago,” added Wolff.

“More importantly, we are relishing the challenge.

“This championship will be fought over 23 race weekends, and each one will give us an opportunity to improve. The start of a new season is always exciting, whether you’ve been working in this sport for a few decades, years or weeks.

“So much hard work has gone into the W14 over the winter and the anticipation to be get racing has kept on building. We will be going flat out this weekend – and are determined to keep that going to the final lap in Abu Dhabi.”