Mercedes boss Toto Wolff excited by 'promising signs' at the factory as the team tries to maximize everything for the 2023 F1 Australian GP

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff is satisfied with the progress that the team has made with the W14. Although the Silver Arrows started the 2023 F1 season on the backfoot, they're taking a completely new direction in terms of car concepts and are working hard back at the Brackley factory.

According to Motorsport-Total.com, Wolff stated how the team took a small step forward in the Saudi Arabian GP as they decided to make massive changes to their car. While he admits that the team needs to take major strides in development before the performance changes on the track, he revealed that the news coming from the Mercedes factory is positive in nature:

"The progress we saw in Saudi Arabia was encouraging. We made the most of the package we had and got a solid points tally. More importantly, we continued our learning process and built more understanding of the W14 and our direction of development. The signs we're seeing at the factory are promising. However, we need to take it one step at a time, and we won't get carried away until we can translate track performance into lap times."

Later on, he acknowledged that the gap to the top of the grid is still quite significant, and Mercedes needs to put in every ounce of effort to catch up to Red Bull and the other top teams:

"The gap to the top is still considerable, and that's exactly what we want to reduce. As always, we'll try to get the maximum out of the car and score as many points as we currently have potential allows."

Chances are that Mercedes might bring some upgrades this weekend to the 2023 F1 Australian GP, with bigger upgrades likely to be introduced in Baku after the April break.

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Toto Wolff feels that Mercedes could take six to twelve months to return to the top

For now, Toto Wolff believes that Mercedes could potentially take another six to 12 months to return to their winning ways in F1. He mentioned how long it took them in the 2022 F1 season to figure out and resolve issues before declaring that it could be a similar situation in 2023. Speaking to Motorsport.com, Wolff said:

“I think the length [of time] is probably between six and 12 months, because that’s the time that it really took for us [last year] to figure out what was actually happening with the car. That means we just need to have double the development speed, so a stronger development slope. The logic and rational speaks that for Red Bull, their gains are going to be incrementally smaller if the concept is mature."

Looking at the current scenario, it's highly unlikely that the Silver Arrows will be able to compete with Red Bull this season. However, Wolff feels that there will be a huge difference in the development curve between the teams since Red Bull has already created one of the strongest cars.