{"id":19972,"date":"2024-04-08T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=19972"},"modified":"2024-04-08T10:03:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T14:03:26","slug":"toto-wolff-mercedes-learned-from-live-experiment-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/04\/08\/toto-wolff-mercedes-learned-from-live-experiment-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff: Mercedes learned from &#8220;live experiment&#8221; in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Toto Wolff believes Mercedes can take positives from the data collected last weekend in Suzuka.<\/h3>\n<p>Mercedes only managed eight points at the Japanese GP in a generally disappointing weekend &#8211; at least in terms of the result. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were happy with the balance after Friday&#8217;s practice. However, such comments of optimism are not uncommon from the Mercedes duo at the beginning of a race weekend. It is during qualifying and the race that the W15&#8217;s main limitations emerge.<\/p>\n<p>Inconsistency and inaccurate correlation data have been recurring themes for Mercedes this season. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/29\/alonso-and-sainz-on-mercedes-shortlist-says-toto-wolff\/\" target=\"_self\">Toto Wolff<\/a> has spoken extensively about this throughout 2024.<\/p>\n<p>One theory for the constant irregularity of the W15 is susceptibility to changes in track temperatures. A cooler track is understood to be an advantage for the Silver Arrows &#8211; whilst increased temperatures has a negative impact.<\/p>\n<p>To understand these root issues, the team worked diligently in the build-up to this weekend. The decision was even made to bring the initial floor specification from Bahrain to establish a baseline.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"zupVAtF2Q3RYJlyDRHnVsg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2139788856\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'zupVAtF2Q3RYJlyDRHnVsg',sig:'F0yidGFNb8j7sSGBUI2iC0dVmQ700cBOQ4T911AfLC0=',w:'594px',h:'384px',items:'2139788856',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Mercedes experimented in Japan<\/h3>\n<p>Although this failed to deliver a strong result, Toto Wolff believes the Japanese GP was invaluable for the team:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;When we went on the same sting as the others, the second and third round were really good and competitive,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/sport.sky.de\/formel-1\/artikel\/alle-stimmen-zum-grossen-preis-von-japan-in-suzuka\/13110005\/34240\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sky Sports Germany<\/a> quotes him as saying.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It&#8217;s live testing that we&#8217;re doing at the moment. The result is really bad on the table, but really good from the things learned.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t the fuel, it was that we overmanaged it. The one-stop looked possible and we tried to let the tyre survive.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;The stint was so bad that we probably lost half a minute. In the second and third stints we were competitive and on the podium.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;I don&#8217;t always want to sugar coat what could have been possible because in the end it was P7 and P9. But the live experiment worked this weekend.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Toto Wolff remains hopeful<\/h3>\n<p>Wolff&#8217;s positive outlook is something that he&#8217;s echoed on numerous occasions since 2022. For most of the current F1 regulations, the German constructor has been adamant about their long-term potential.<\/p>\n<p>This belief was especially prevalent in pre-season, as evidenced by James Allison in pre-season. The Mercedes Technical Director seemed confident that with a new platform, the W15 could be the second-fastest team to start the year.<\/p>\n<p>Evidently, this hope has not been well-founded at this stage. Looking ahead to the next few rounds, the extent to which Mercedes can <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/02\/f1-news-mercedes-miscalculation-proves-costly-in-bahrain\/\" target=\"_self\">find solutions to their issues<\/a> will be revealed.<\/p>\n<p>If a solution cannot be found, then the next eighteen months could be relatively painful for the Championship-winning team. With a new set of regulations not too far away, Mercedes might be forced to make big decisions about how many more resources they will diver to these cars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toto Wolff believes Mercedes can take positives from the data collected last weekend in Suzuka. Mercedes only managed eight points at the Japanese GP in a generally disappointing weekend &#8211; at least in terms of the result. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were happy with the balance after Friday&#8217;s practice. However, such comments of optimism [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":19995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,68,23,121,825],"class_list":["post-19972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-mercedes","tag-toto-wolff"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}