Mercedes suffered their worst F1 season since 2013 as their streak of eight consecutive constructors’ championships got here to an finish after getting caught out by the game’s new period of aerodynamic laws.
George Russell claimed the staff’s solely victory in Brazil whereas teammate Lewis Hamilton didn’t win a race for the primary time in his profession as Mercedes slipped to 3rd within the constructors’ standings, behind Crimson Bull and Ferrari.
Mercedes spent a lot of the season making an attempt to repair porpoising and bouncing issues that plagued their automotive, and needed to settle with being the third-fastest staff for many of the yr.
Requested how Mercedes didn’t see the porpoising drawback coming whereas different groups anticipated it, Wolff advised the Past The Grid podcast: “As a result of we acquired it flawed. Even one of the best individuals can get it flawed.
“My assumption of why a staff would perform – that I realized again within the Williams days – is that you need to have the suitable infrastructure, the monetary useful resource, good drivers, a strong engine, the suitable organisation, and sufficient time to place all of it collectively.
“These components would just remember to are aggressive. Profitable could be one thing else, and successful a championship is a unique factor, however we’ve all of that.
“We haven’t out of the blue taken a silly tablet [and gone from] successful the constructors’ championship final December after which in March being nowhere.
“It is rather straightforward – we acquired the idea flawed. We underestimated the impact when operating the automotive very low and others did a greater job.
“Whether or not they knew the impact from previous days or they had been merely extra targeted on this specific space of automotive behaviour, I don’t know.
“However within the organisation, no person is shy to say that we’ve carried out a foul job right here. It is rather straightforward.
“There isn’t a hiding, there isn’t any searching for for a proof of how we ended up there. All of us are saying that we acquired this very flawed and others acquired it very proper.”
Wolff admitted Mercedes’ lack of competitiveness in 2022 took some getting used to, regardless of the staff bracing themselves for the inevitable day their run of F1 dominance ended.
“When it comes to efficiency, you’ll be able to say after eight consecutive constructors’ titles, popping out of the blocks being half a second off – and I’m being moderately on the optimistic facet – was definitely one thing you wanted to get used to,” Wolff defined.
“We talked about it these final eight years, how we might react if that had been to occur – how would we deal with shedding? Inevitably we knew that at some point it’s going to occur, and right here we’re.
“I’m notably pleased with the staff, how we’ve recovered by means of the season, as a result of it wasn’t a one-race blip. It wasn’t that there was a transparent trajectory that was going up solely; we had good races after which we fell again.
“On the finish, I feel we’re a lot nearer to our rivals, the front-running vehicles, than we had been in the beginning.”