Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is 'confident' and 'relishing the challenge' of competing for the world championship

After a tough season for the Silver Arrows in 2022, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff revealed that the team is ready for another challenge this year, but is certainly more optimistic about their prospects of performing at a higher level than they were this time last year.

As reported by Motorsport Week, the Austrian admitted that although the team faced a few bumps along the road during the winter test sessions in Bahrain in terms of reliability and set-up, these learnings were instrumental in the progress made by Mercedes leading up to the season opener:

“We didn’t have the smoothest winter test in Bahrain. We had some reliability problems and struggled with the car set-up on day two. But the key objective was to learn about the car, and we did lots of learning. We made good progress on the final day, which gave us directions to work on in the short period between the test and this weekend’s race.”

He added that the team is "confident" about the level of competitiveness that they expect to achieve over the course of the season:

“It’s always hard to have a clear picture of competitiveness at pre-season testing – and even more so with only three days of data available. Our expectations were that we would likely be playing catch-up to the front, based on how last year ended. That seems to be the case so far but we will only know for sure after this weekend. Nevertheless, we are confident we have got a car we can work with and are in a stronger position than 12 months ago. More importantly, we are relishing the challenge.”

Wolff concluded his statement with a strong message:

“So much hard work has gone into the W14 over the winter and the anticipation to be get racing has kept on building. We will be going flat out this weekend – and are determined to keep that going to the final lap in Abu Dhabi.”

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Lewis Hamilton impressed by Mercedes team members returning with the "same mentality" as before

Lewis Hamilton, who has been struggling ever since the dramatic final lap of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, admitted that he was happy to see Mercedes team members returning to work as rejuvenated as ever.

As reported by F1.com, the seven-time world champion praised his team for their ability to not get bogged down by the struggles they have faced in recent seasons:

"It’s been an interesting few days. It’s never easy, it’s been a lot of discovery. I think the thing that I’ve been most impressed with is that this is my 11th year with the team, and everyone has shown up with the same mentality, working hard, no one has been complacent. We realize that we have a mountain to climb, and no one’s fussed. Everyone has just kept their heads down, so really proud of that, everyone in the garage, everyone back here and I know everyone back at the factory will be churning through all this data and pushing on.”

Interestingly, Mercedes finished third in the 2022 F1 championship after having dominated the sport for eight consecutive years.