"Both losers": Toto Wolff's blunt verdict for both Mercedes and Ferrari compared to Red Bull in 2023

Toto Wolff recently claimed that both Mercedes and Ferrari are losers in 2023, despite one securing second without a win and the other finishing third with one race win. The Austrian feels that anything below the top spot in the table, where Red Bull currently sits, is a loss for his and other top teams.

Speaking to the media, including RacingNews365, the Mercedes team boss gave his opinion of how both his team and Ferrari are losers compared to Red Bull. He explained how there are both advantages and disadvantages to ending up in second and third in terms of bonuses and wind tunnel time allocations. He said:

"Both losers. It's better to be second for the money and the bonuses and it is better to be P3 because of the wind-tunnel time. Ferrari has 7% more than us though, and we would have had 14% more than Red Bull [if we finished third], but you can't get what you always want. You want the bonuses and the extra wind-tunnel time."

Mercedes ended the 2023 F1 season in second place by scoring 409 points, while Ferrari ended up in third place with 406 points.

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Mercedes team boss gives his view on the 'sport vs entertainment' discussion in F1

In recent times, there has been a lot of debate around F1's supposed lack of focus on the sport and more on entertainment. Speaking with Bloomberg, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff shared his opinion on how Formula 1 should have a balance between the two. He insisted that F1 should not go beyond the sport and that the core event, the Grand Prix on Sunday, should always be the star of the race weekend.

“Do we go beyond the sport, too much entertainment? No, I don’t think so. We’re trying different formats with the sprint race weekends and Las Vegas, racing in the night," he said.

"And if it needs calibration to provide a better show while staying true to our values of the honest sport, I think we’ve got to try it. But the core product, the grand prix on Sunday, within the regulations – financial, technical, and sporting – is always what Formula 1 has been all about,” he added.

F1 has introduced sprint races and increased the number of races in the US, which has many fans and pundits debating on whether the seniors of the sport are focusing on the entertainment rather than racing itself.