"It’s a fantastic market for us" - Mercedes' Toto Wolff wants 3 F1 Chinese GPs in the future

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff feels F1 needs to expand its footprint in the Chinese market.

In an interview with Xinhua, the 50-year-old said F1 should have three races in China from the 2023 F1 season onwards.

Wolff said:

"We’ve been in Shanghai before and couldn’t be there the last two years, but this is an important market for us. I’d like to not only race in Shanghai, I’d also like to race in Beijing. It’s a fantastic market for us as Mercedes, and I believe we should be embedded there with a strong footprint.

"We have three races in the U.S. now, Las Vegas, Miami and Austin and if we can do the same thing in China, that would be great."

It is slightly difficult to envision China having as many as three races per season just like the United States. While the US has a heritage in motorsport, with NASCAR and Indycar gaining immense popularity, the same could not be said about China.

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We will eventually find our way back: Mercedes' Toto Wolff

Reflecting on the 2022 season, Toto Wolff acknowledged that Mercedes lost out to Red Bull and Ferrari at the start of the new season. However, he also claimed that the team would find its way to the front soon enough.

Wolff said:

“From our own perspective at Mercedes, we have won eight consecutive world championships in a row and there’s a new generation of cars now. We’ve come out of the blocks a little bit slow,”

“We are the third quickest, but we will eventually find our way back. But you need to be humble about it and accept somebody has done a good job.

Mercedes have had a rather poor start to the 2022 F1 season. They are currently third in the constructors’ standings.

The team will be hoping to stage a comeback soon before the championship is out of reach.