F1: Australia A Good Start For Mercedes, Says Wolff

Formula 1

F1: Australia A Good Start For Mercedes, Says Wolff

Mercedes had a decent weekend in Australia, despite not getting the finishes it could have...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted March 20, 2013 Balen (BEL)

Mercedes' Toto Wolff says it's too early to draw too many conclusions about the relative one lap and race pace of various cars. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Mercedes motor sport chief Toto Wolff says he’s happy with the way the team started the season in Australia.

Both cars ran at the front early on, helped by an unusually long first stint. However, in the end, an unplanned third stop left Lewis Hamilton fifth, while Nico Rosberg retired with an electrical problem.

“I think the car is a solid car, and the base seems to be there,” Wolff told SPEED.com. “It’s just a matter of learning the lessons. The tire is even more difficult to understand than last year. You had one Lotus winning the race, and the other one finishing 10th. We were looking good on the option tire at the beginning. We extended the window and suddenly on the prime, the tire went over the cliff.

“Fifth place is solid. There are lots of lessons to be learned in terms of strategy and tire management. We ran very well on the soft tire in the first few laps, and it looked like a two-stop strategy was the way forward, but the hard wouldn’t work.

“The work we’ve done over the winter was good. Now it’s just about keeping the head down, and continuing to work. It looks like we are among the top five teams, and this was my personal target.”

Wolff said it was too early to draw too many conclusions about the relative one lap and race pace of various cars.

“The interesting thing is the winner started seventh, and the pole position car finished third, and struggled a lot with the tires,” he said. “Can you say that every car has a certain pattern, or a certain DNA? Maybe. Lessons to be learned could include compromising the Saturday result even more for the Sunday result, in terms of setup. This is what we’re going to see in the next few races from all the teams, I guess.

“Malaysia is the next lesson to be learned, in very hot conditions, and see what is going on. I think it’s just about continuing to develop and perform and staying calm and focused, and then it’s about the end of the year. We want to progress in comparison to last year. Lots of teams are having a headache at the moment with the tires.”

Wolff said he was delighted with the way both the drivers performed.

“Lewis seems to enjoy himself with the team, and is having a good time. Nico was very good the whole weekend. Obviously, qualifying wasn’t the way he expected, but there’s no reason to be depressed about that. They both did a fantastic job, and have every reason to be proud of this.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.