Mercedes boss admits the team 'needed the shock' at the beginning of the season to take necessary drastic steps in the car concept

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted that the team needed the shock at the beginning of the season in Bahrain to bring in swift changes. The team had a horrible start to the season in Bahrain when it looked like the car was at best the fourth fastest.

At that moment, Aston Martin had jumped ahead of Mercedes while Ferrari too appeared to hold an edge over the German team. The first race in Bahrain saw a very aggressive Toto Wolff call out his technical team and stress that a change in the car concept was the need of the hour.

Since then, Mercedes has had a mixed bag of results where it has remained competitive amongst the top four. It was during this time as well that the team introduced its upgrade package in Monaco and ditched the no-sidepod concept.

The very next race in Barcelona saw the team secure a double podium and comfortably outpace Aston Martin and Ferrari. Looking back at the first seven races of the year, Toto Wolff has admitted that the wake-up call was necessary for the team at the start of the season.

He was quoted by racingnews365 as saying:

"I think we needed the shock at the beginning of the season to understand that we are not going forwards and there is no performance gains in it, and that shook it up. Then there is time to design and produce things. The team did a good job bringing those updates. It was concentrating on what we thought we do well. The wake up call at the beginning of the season was good."

Mercedes boss gives his props to the team in Brixworth and Brackley

Toto Wolff also went on to applaud the work done by the team in Brixworth and Brackley. Although changing so many parts was not going to be an easy task, the Mercedes boss is now happy with the outcome.

He said:

"I am very happy for the hard work that has been done back at Brixworth and Brackley. We took some designs to go in another direction, we changed so many parts that we thought that we did not completely understand and knew it was a risky move. Everyone just pushed forwards and we have a good race car."

Mercedes has now jumped Aston Martin in the constructors' championship and will be hoping to close down the gap with Red Bull in the upcoming races.