Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has warned there is a “Mount Everest to climb in order to catch up with Red Bull” in the 2024 Formula One season.
Max Verstappen ended the 2023 campaign with a 19th victory from 22 races after winning the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc second after Sergio Perez’s five-second penalty, and Mercedes driver George Russell third.
Lewis Hamilton’s ninth-place finish helped Mercedes finish second in the constructor standings, three points ahead of Ferrari. But Red Bull’s imperious season saw them finish a huge 451 points ahead of Mercedes.
Verstappen was rarely challenged in Abu Dhabi, holding off Leclerc early on before stretching his lead and finishing almost 18 seconds ahead of his nearest challenger.
It was a fitting way for the Dutchman to close out the most dominant season in F1 history.
“Red Bull started the new regulations in 2022 with a massive advantage and they have been able to maintain it.
“We have a lot of respect for their achievements, from the engineering side, and the driver. Beating them under the current regulations is against the odds.”
Looking ahead to 2024, Hamilton was downbeat about Mercedes’ chances, even though the team are going through a complete redesign for the next campaign.
“Red Bull won by 17 seconds and they have not touched the car since August or July,” Hamilton said.
“So you can pretty much guess where they’re going to be next year. It’s not been a great year in general so there’s not a lot to take from it.”
After the race, Verstappen said it will be “very hard to have another season like this”, and Wolff is hoping Mercedes can put pressure on Red Bull as they work on their car in the off-season.
“We had to be honest that this car was never going to be good enough to fight for a world championship,” he said.
“We took the decision in April to go back to the drawing board and come up with something different for next year.
“We are changing the concept. We are moving away from how we laid out the chassis, the weight distribution, the airflow, literally every component has been changed because only by doing that do we have a chance. You could get it wrong also. Everything is possible.”
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