Mercedes’ aggressive development push explained with ‘upgrades every single race’

Toto Wolff says he has never before seen the pace at which the Mercedes factory is working to upgrade their 2024 F1 car.

Mercedes have brought a raft of updates in a bid to improve their troubled W15 at recent races amid an aggressive development push, with the team enjoying a resurgence in performance after a disappointing start to the campaign.

George Russell capitalised on a collision between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to score an unlikely win last time out in Austria, following on from back-to-back podium finishes for the team in Canada and Spain.

Wolff said Mercedes are planning to bring upgrades “almost to every race”.

“I think we are bringing upgrades now almost to every race. The factory is running on full steam,” Wolff told media including Crash.net in Austria.

“We’ve never had this in 12 years that we were able to develop, design, manufacturer, bring it to the track and have the quality in the pieces. I’ve seriously never seen that pace.

“Every single race we have brought upgrades. Every single race, we will bring upgrades and I hope by the summer break we can make another step. Now everyone else is working hard, but if we can eat a bit away at that gap.

“I think it was 15 seconds in 70 laps, so two tenths [a lap at the Austrian Grand Prix]… and that’s okay. That’s a P3 and hopefully if we can half it, we can race in front.”

Mercedes remain a distant fourth place in the constructors’ championship but have been buoyed by their encouraging progress in recent weeks.

And Wolff believes Mercedes are now on a trajectory to fight for race wins on merit before the end of the season.

“On pace, we were the third-quickest car,” Wolff added. “We’ve been this way the last three weekends and that is very encouraging to see that upward trend and the consolidation of the trend.

"But racing happens on Sunday. Sometimes we’ve been on the receiving end and today we’ve benefited from the incident at the front. It’s just good to have that win in the pocket this year. It means there’s four teams that won races this year, and it’s been just 2023 where we haven’t won a race since 2011.

“That is good to know and certainly big momentum now in the team to go to a point where we are able on real performance to fight for the win. And I think we will be.”