“Everything that we can change, we will” - Mercedes honcho Toto Wolff pledges significant changes to challenge Red Bull Racing

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff revealed a host of changes for the 2024 challenger, the W15, to create a car capable of competing with Red Bull at the top of the grid.

After a winless 2023 season for the team, Mercedes aims to return to winning ways in the 2024 F1 season. Despite their second-place finish in the Constructors' standings in 2023, they were far off Red Bull's pace, who amazingly won all but one race in 2023. After a rather disappointing season with the W14, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff revealed while speaking to the media that there would be a complete change in the car's design and parts.

Wolff was quoted as saying by Formu1a.uno:

"A different chassis, different aerodynamics, different characteristics, different suspension."

"Everything that we can change, we [will] change."

Wolff further revealed that the data in the simulator for the future Mercedes W15 has been positive. While this sounds good for the team, Wolff is still cautious about managing expectations.

"So far, the results in the virtual world [the simulator] are positive. But we need to be careful in terms of managing our expectations."

"We need such a [big] step to catch up to the fight for a Championship."

Mercedes won the Constructors' championship in the 2021 season as well. However, Lewis Hamilton lost to Max Verstappen in the fight for the world drivers' championship on the last race day. The 2022 season was expected to mark a comeback for Mercedes but new regulations made life difficult for the team on the track. Mercedes has won just one race in the past two seasons.

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Mercedes director hopeful of chasing Red Bull in the 2024 season

With a new (probable) philosophy for the 2024 car, Mercedes is trying to get back to the top in the F1 standings. Red Bull has set the current benchmark for performance with other teams fighting far behind amongst each other.

Mercedes Technical Director James Allison however harbors hopes of challenging Red Bull in the 2024 season. Speaking to Sky Sports, Allison said:

"Our challenge, specifically, over winter and the last many months in making our 2024 car is to ensure that we don't let them off the hook like that for next year."

"I'm hopeful that we've learnt what we need to in order to give them (Red Bull) more of a fight."

The issue with the car earlier in the season was thought to be the 'zero pod' design that Mercedes had been reliant on since 2022. Despite changing that mid-season, there wasn't much success on the track. While there were a couple of podiums during the season, Mercedes could not battle for the win in most races.

Lewis Hamilton later revealed that the issue of the car was related to the floor as it did not generate enough downforce.

Heading into the 2024 season, Mercedes would be looking forward to mitigating those issues and building a more competitive car.