Wolff reveals new details about Imola upgrades to cure Mercedes' "poison"

Since the start of F1 2023, Mercedes have been pinning their hopes on Imola as the turning point for their season.

Mercedes have struggled for pace during the opening five races of the season, scoring just one podium.

They’ve also been out-performed by customer team Aston Martin, who run Mercedes engines and the rear of their car is purchased from the Brackley-based team.

After the race in Miami, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell played down the likely impact of the Imola upgrade.

While Wolff dismissed it as being “a silver bullet”, he’s confident it will give Mercedes better long term development potential.

• Hamilton's bad news after Miami: 'Not like I have a one-second upgrade coming'

“We need to manage our own expectations, because we're bringing an update package that's going to consist of new suspension parts, bodywork and some other things,” he revealed.

“But I have never in my 15 years in F1 seen a silver bullet being introduced, where suddenly you unlock half a second of performance. So, I very much doubt that this is going to happen here. 

“But what I'm looking forward to is that we take certain variables off the table, where we believe we could have introduced something that we don't understand in the car. 

“[I am hoping] we can go more to a stable platform, and then we should see where the baseline is and what we can do from there.”

Wolff described the incoming upgrade as “large surgery” with Mercedes set to make a raft of changes to cure the “poisonous” W14.

• Russell downplays Mercedes’ Imola upgrade: “Not going to transform things”

“I think we are chasing downforce and we're trying to do the best possible job in terms of the mechanical platform. 

“What we're doing is we're introducing a new bodywork, and we're introducing a new floor and we're doing a new front suspension and that's pretty large. That's a pretty large operation. Large surgery. It’s going to be a lot of learning in the virtual world, where it is good lap time.

“That's why the upgrade that we're bringing is going to help us to set the direction, and to understand the various areas that we believe could play a role in why the car is so poisonous to drive."