Mercedes: Toto Wolff thinks that Hamilton and Rosberg will end up touching – or not
The fourth consecutive one-two finish achieved by Mercedes at the 2014 Spanish Grand Prix has sparked the possibility in many people's minds that the German team could win all the races of the season. A step that Toto Wolff, the executive director of Mercedes F1, refuses to take.
Even though the idea of a grand slam must be circulating among the current leaders of the Formula 1 World Championship, Toto Wolff, the Executive Director of the Mercedes team, refuses to consider such a possibility.
In fact, when asked by Reuters about the possibility of a clean sweep, he ironically responds: « Yes, that’s what we’re going to do and then, we’ll retire. »
More seriously, he added: « It’s only the fifth race, if you look at the performance now, this idea comes to mind and you say to yourself ‘Well, this has never happened and could it happen?’ But we know the race. »
Despite the ease with which Mercedes won the last four Grand Prix races, notably the one in Spain where only four competing cars were able to stay on the same lap as the Silver Arrows, Toto Wolff prefers to keep a cool head and reminds: « There are still 14 races left, we have not encountered truly difficult conditions in races. We haven’t had safety car periods at the wrong time, we haven’t had showers falling at the wrong time. »
He admits, with a smile, that for now Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are getting along quite well and are not making mistakes, without excluding the possibility that such an eventuality could ruin a potential grand slam: « They haven’t touched yet, which will eventually happen—or not, hopefully. So it’s much too early. It would really be losing focus to think about that. »
Two teams have come close to the grand slam in the past, McLaren in 1988 during the era of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost with 15 wins in 16 races, and Ferrari in 2002 during the era of Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn.
It is interesting to note about the 2002 season that one of the two races lost by Ferrari was precisely in Monaco, which will be the setting for the next Grand Prix and is a low-speed street circuit, therefore less likely to favor the power of the Mercedes engine. However, at the time, Ferrari had won all the remaining races after Monaco.
From there to thinking that if Mercedes wins in Monte-Carlo, they will win for the rest of the season, there is only one step that Fernando Alonso does not hesitate to take. Following the qualifying session for the 2014 Spanish Grand Prix, he told the BBC about Mercedes: “They should probably be in a position to win every race, so it will be tight between them.”
For his part, Christian Horner, the director of Red Bull, is not decided on giving up the fight against Mercedes, despite a dominance he does not contest. “We have a choice to make: either we pack up and go home, or we fight to try to close the gap,” he said recently. He added: “We made some small breakthroughs this weekend and we are determined to keep pushing, trying to close the gap. We are going to push like mad all season until the last race in Abu Dhabi.”
Where McLaren had failed due to an overflow of talent, where Ferrari had failed due to an overly uneven driver duo, will Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton manage to remain flawless until the championship’s conclusion? Will Red Bull be able to close the gap enough to win at least one race? Answers begin in Monaco in about ten days.