Toto Wolff shoots down Christian Horner’s Mercedes suspicions

Toto Wolff has rubbished Christian Horner’s claims that Mercedes will make a massive step forward at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The Silver Arrows will fit a new front suspension and a new floor in Imola as well as a range of aerodynamic upgrades.

It comes with the German marque continuing to lack pace to Red Bull and even dropping behind Ferrari and Aston Martin at some events this year. However, team boss Wolff has urged fans and engineers to not get carried away over the scale of the updates despite Horner hearing the squad had major parts on the way.

Wolff said: “We need to manage our own expectations because we’re bringing an update package that’s going to consist of new suspension parts and bodywork. But I have never in my 15 years in F1 seen a silver bullet being introduced, where suddenly you unlock half-a-second performance.

“So I very much doubt that this is going to happen here.” Speaking in Miami, Wolff doubled down on his assertion that the parts would not provide an instant answer to Red Bull’s dominant start to the campaign.

He added: “We are talking so much about the upgrade but we are not going to put it down on the track and drive circles around Red Bull.”

Red Bull have piled the pressure on the eight-time Constructors’ Champions, suggesting the new upgrades could close the gap. Horner told the F1 Nation podcast: “It’s still a long season and they’ve got a lot of development time available to them.

“I mean, let’s see. I keep hearing massive upgrades for Mercedes are coming and significant ones for Ferrari. So if they do have a B-spec car, then things can change quite quickly.”

But, Red Bull could face a major hurdle with their in-season performance upgrades set to be hampered.

The team were slapped with a 10 per cent reduction in wind tunnel development time last season after the champions were found guilty of breaching F1’s budget cap rules. The squad feels this could allow their rivals to close the gap but are hopeful of building a strong enough lead before then.

When pushed at which event the budget cap penalty could start to bite, Horner commented: “I think you’ll see from the next race. I think there’s big upgrades coming. We just have to be super selective in terms of what we test and how we develop the car.

“Thankfully the cars got off to a great start and therefore we are not having to solve big issues and big problems so we are able to focus on those incremental gains. But I still expect it to converge later in the year.”