The Brackley -based outfit suffered another difficult weekend in Baku , with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell suffering from the excessive porpoising that has plagued them all season.
And while he remains confident they can squeeze out the performance he thinks his current W13 has to put up a fight against Red Bull Racing and Ferrari, Wolff says they could consider a larger-scale overhaul for 2023 if things don’t improve soon.
Asked by Motorsport.com if the team was just focused on improving the current car, or if they were already moving on to change things for next year, Wolff said: “I think we are looking at all possible solutions under the leadership of Mike Elliot”.
“He is a very strong technical director and there are no sacred cows in the car. Everything is being studied and for sure we will get the car back on track.”
“If things can’t be resolved in the short term, because they are conceptual, they will be resolved in the next few months.”
Although Mercedes has not recently maintained the level of form it showed with improvements at the Spanish GP, Wolff insists the team is making progress in understanding what has gone wrong.
However, he says he has yet to figure out exactly what steps to take with the W13 to overcome its problems.
Therefore, they will continue with the type of experiments that Hamilton carried out at the Azerbaijan GP and that left him exposed to severe back pain.
“I think we know what the root of our lack of performance is, but we don’t have the answers yet as to what the best solution will be,” Wolff said.
“This is what we are experiencing at the moment. I still think there is a short-term solution that makes us much more competitive, but it may not explain everything. I would like to have the car in the right position for the second half of the year. and also for next year. Learning is more key than short-term optimization for the weekend.”
Wolff considers that the good performance he had in the Spanish Grand Prix shows that he can have good performances on circuits without potholes and without aggressive curbs.
That’s why he says this weekend ‘s Canadian GP – at the bumpy Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where drivers have to abuse curbs – will be a good opportunity to explore his weaknesses.
“I think we took a very good step in Barcelona on a circuit that has a smooth surface,” he said. “So with fewer potholes we’re fine.”
“I think we have a good car and we were able to unlock the performance in the race, but in qualifying we were a bit lacking.
“That’s easy to explain, because we’ve had two months now where we’re trying to figure out the porpoising and we haven’t been able to add the base yield, and that hurts us a little bit.”
“For us we understand: we understand what is going on. We also understand what we have to do. And that means, in a way, that Montreal is a very good race for us this week, because the Montreal circuit has a lot of rebound, it has a lot of curbs. And after Montreal I hope to have a better view.”
