Wolff: Mercedes needs to be "careful" with F1 expectations
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has urged his team to be "careful" in thinking it can soon challenge Red Bull and Ferrari, despite its pace gains in the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix.


While Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s third and fourth place finish matched previous season highs, the Montreal performance was the team’s most competitive race of the campaign in pure pace terms.
That has opened up talk of Mercedes being close to finally challenging pace-setters Red Bull and Ferrari, especially as F1 heads to high-speed and smooth circuits like Silverstone and Paul Ricard that should suit its car.
But Wolff is remaining very cautious and is mindful that similar levels of optimism after the Spanish Grand Prix evaporated very quickly.
“One swallow doesn't make a summer,” he explained. “We saw that swallow in Barcelona, but somehow it flew somewhere else.
“I think we need to be careful. We were off the pace on Friday. In the wet we were good, and I think that was respectable. And I think that in the race, at times, we were with the quickest cars. In the second stint Lewis and George were almost matching the frontrunners. They were not quite, but on some laps, yes.
“That is very encouraging to see. But we just need to be careful. There's so much work we need to do in order to be back at the front, and we are not yet there.”

Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes AMG
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
For Hamilton, who took his second podium finish of the year after third place in the season opener in Bahrain, the result has lifted optimism levels about what is possible over the remainder of the campaign.
“It’s given me and the team a lot of hope,” Hamilton said. “I think that there's more to come from this car. The potential is truly there if we can get the set-up right, and I think that's been the most difficult thing this year: really trying to optimise the set-up.
“The window for this car is much, much smaller than any other car we've experienced.”
Wolff said that was one of the big positives to take out of the Montreal weekend was seeing Hamilton finally have a weekend where circumstances did not conspire against him.
Having had a number of events where bad timing of safety cars or small events hurt him, Wolff welcomed a more straightforward delivery in Canada.
“There were a lot of races that it worked against him, where he could have scored a podium or a much better result and it was not his wrongdoing but bad luck,” said Wolff.
“Seeing him now on the positive side and being on the podium without anything in a way gifted, that's good to see.”

The wing choice that impacted Sainz's top speed in Verstappen Canadian GP battle
Sainz now able to push without fear of crashing Ferrari F1 car

Latest news
Norris had to adjust to 2022 McLaren F1 car that was "very unsuited for me"
Lando Norris believes he has done a “reasonable job” adjusting to the 2022 McLaren Formula 1 car that is “very unsuited” to his driving style.
Top 10 Arrows F1 drivers ranked: Hill, Warwick, Fittipaldi and more
No Formula 1 team has started more races without winning one than Arrows, although it came close on several occasions. Twenty years on from the team's demise, Autosport takes on the task of ranking its best drivers
How Storm Eunice delayed Mercedes' F1 porpoising alarm
Mercedes only got a full grasp of how severe its porpoising issues were in Formula 1 pre-season testing after Storm Eunice impacted its first 2022 car shakedown at Silverstone.
When Indycar conquered F1 - Monzanapolis
Imagine a race between the best of Formula 1 and Indycar drivers.
The under-fire F1 driver fighting for his future
Personable, articulate and devoid of the usual racing driver airs and graces, Nicholas Latifi is the last Formula 1 driver you’d expect to receive death threats, but such was the toxic legacy of his part in last year’s explosive season finale. And now, as ALEX KALINAUCKAS explains, he faces a battle to keep his place on the F1 grid…
The strange tyre travails faced by F1’s past heroes
Modern grand prix drivers like to think the tyres they work with are unusually difficult and temperamental. But, says MAURICE HAMILTON, their predecessors faced many of the same challenges – and some even stranger…
The returning fan car revolution that could suit F1
Gordon Murray's Brabham BT46B 'fan car' was Formula 1 engineering at perhaps its most outlandish. Now fan technology has been successfully utilised on the McMurtry Speirling at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, could it be adopted by grand prix racing once again?
Hamilton's first experience of turning silver into gold
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion has been lumbered with a duff car before the 2022 Mercedes. Back in 2009, McLaren’s alchemists transformed the disastrous MP4-24 into a winning car with Lewis Hamilton at the wheel. And now it’s happening again at his current team, but can the rate of progress be matched this year?
Why few could blame Leclerc for following the example of Hamilton’s exit bombshell
OPINION: Ferrari's numerous strategy blunders, as well as some of his own mistakes, have cost Charles Leclerc dearly in the 2022 Formula 1 title battle in the first half of the season. Though he is locked into a deal with Ferrari, few could blame Leclerc if he ultimately wanted to look elsewhere - just as Lewis Hamilton did with McLaren 10 years prior
The other McLaren exile hoping to follow Perez's path to a top F1 seat
After being ditched by McLaren earlier in his F1 career Sergio Perez fought his way back into a seat with a leading team. BEN EDWARDS thinks the same could be happening to another member of the current grid
How studying Schumacher helped make Coulthard a McLaren F1 mainstay
Winner of 13 grands prix including Monaco and survivor of a life-changing plane crash, David Coulthard could be forgiven for having eased into a quiet retirement – but, as MARK GALLAGHER explains, in fact he’s busier than ever, running an award-winning media company and championing diversity in motor racing. Not bad for someone who, by his own admission, wasn’t quite the fastest driver of his generation…
Could F1 move to a future beyond carbonfibre?
Formula 1 has ambitious goals for improving its carbon footprint, but could this include banishing its favoured composite material? PAT SYMONDS considers the alternatives to carbonfibre and what use, if any, those materials have in a Formula 1 setting