Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has admitted he has become “frustrated” that the side has been unable to unlock the “silver bullet” with its 2024 Formula 1 car.
Mercedes has struggled since F1’s return to ground effect aero in 2022, slumping from a run of eight consecutive Constructors’ titles to one win in the past two terms.
Despite promising signs from its revamped car in testing, Mercedes has endured its worst beginning to a campaign since 2012 with a haul of 26 points in two races.
Wolff conceded a fortnight ago in Saudi Arabia that Mercedes was combating a “fundamental” correlation issue in relation to its high-speed cornering expectations.
The German marque elected to revert to its launch-spec floor for practice in Australia to run cross-comparison tests and Lewis Hamilton languished down in 18th.
The seven-time champion complained that “something is wrong” on the team radio, with Wolff revealing that an extensive set-up trial on his car didn’t go as planned.
“We’ve achieved the experiment [we wanted to do] but we haven’t unlocked performance,” Wolff told Sky F1 following the conclusion of the second practice session.
“In the second session we’ve gone through a really dramatic set-up change on Lewis and that has massively backfired.”
George Russell continued the trend of being the lead Mercedes runner in the nascent stages of 2024, but he remained 0.674s adrift of the benchmark time in sixth place.
Although Mercedes has appeared no closer to getting on top of these regulations, Wolff has insisted that the squad will not give up in its bid to return to the sharp end.
“To say that I’m not frustrated would not be the truth,” he lamented.
“We are [frustrated] because we’re trying so much in all directions but don’t seem to find that silver bullet yet which helps us to get in the right direction.”
“We gotta keep trying. We’ve seen performance in this car before.
“I just don’t want to go back and say we’re not good in these regulations because we have everything we need to get on top of that, and we will.”