Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says his team needs to turn its factories upside down in order to keep Ferrari at bay for the remaining seven races of the season.
Mercedes currently leads the drivers’ standings with Lewis Hamilton by 30 points and the constructors’ championship by 25 points, but has fallen behind Ferrari when it comes to outright performance.
Lewis Hamilton won the last round in Italy, but it was on a track that has witnessed Mercedes domination since 2014 and only after Ferrari had locked out the front row of the grid on Saturday. The next round of the season takes place in Singapore — a track where Mercedes has struggled for performance in recent years — and Wolff is aware of the challenge facing his team.
“We will give it everything in Singapore and all the remaining races,” he said. “We will turn our factories in Brixworth and Brackley upside down to extract performance and go to Singapore with the aim of do the best.
“Whether that’s good enough to win the race or not I don’t know yet, but the next seven races are going to be maximum attack.”
Ferrari clearly had the quicker car over a single lap at Monza but Hamilton was able to outfox Kimi Raikkonen on race day and beat the Ferrari driver to victory. Wolff suspects Ferrari’s power advantage, which has been the source of much speculation in recent weeks, is limited to qualifying when the full power of the Energy Recovery System is deployed over a single lap and less useful in the race.
“Yes it looks like the performance they are able to deploy on one lap is maybe not something they can replicate throughout the race,” he said. “I don’t want to go any further because it could be read in a different way like I’m trying to find excuses.
“But they certainly seemed to have a very good car qualifying at Monza and a good car in the race.”