Mercedes proclaims nobody can win 8 F1 championships in a row in future

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claims a combination of the cost cap and limited wind tunnel testing means that nobody can win eight F1 championships in a row, as the Silver Arrows did from 2014-2021.

Toto Wolff told the media:

"I think you just need to play a better game than the others. It's a relative competition, and we know who our competitors are today, there will be others tomorrow and after tomorrow because of the cost cap limits that have been set, and this is what the sport should be, not one team, not three, but maybe five [in title contention], and the landscape has changed. I don't think that anybody will run away with eight championships in a row going forward, and this is the way the regulations have been designed."

Wolff claims F1's changing philosophy will stop a team from outright dominating the sport for more than a couple of years in a row. The sport has introduced a tight financial budget for teams to adhere to, in a bid to bridge the gap between smaller and bigger teams. Teams also have limited wind tunnel testing time, making it harder for bigger teams to crush their smaller opponents. Given the current F1 landscape, the Mercedes boss believes no team can win eight titles in a row, as his team did from 2014-2021.

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Mercedes will 100% recover from a dismal 2022 season, claims Toto Wolff

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is certain his team will recover from their disappointing campaign in 2022. The Austrian exec is sure the Silver Arrows will not repeat the mistakes of the dominant teams before them.

Expressing confidence in his team bouncing back in 2023, Wolff revealed that Mercedes is spending a good amount of time understanding why dominant teams fall from the top steps of the sport. He told the media:

"We are analysing the seasons in the past for why teams that dominated over an era suddenly lost performance. You can trace it back pretty well; a change in the regulation, people leaving, a tyre that fundamentally changed. For us, the regulation changed - we got it wrong. But all the other pillars are still in place. I'm 100% sure that this was a difficult year that was necessary for us to re-energise the organisation."

The team was unable to grasp the newly introduced aero regulations, leading to a severe fall from grace. Mercedes' 2022 challenger, the W13, was riddled with porpoising in the first half of the season. As a result, the team was unable to catch up to Red Bull and Ferrari, who dominated the rest of the field.

With Red Bull getting a 10% reduction in wind tunnel testing time for next year, the Silver Arrows can hope for a closer battle with their 2021 championship rivals.