Mercedes Benz: Formula 1 is less entertaining
Mercedes Benz Team principal Toto Wolff claims that Formula 1 racing is less entertaining due to the superiority of Red Bull and Ferrari cars.
The Mercedes team is experiencing its worst season of the hybrid era. It has gone from dominating the World Championship (it has won eight consecutive constructors’ championships and seven drivers’ championships) to being the third team on the grid after being overtaken by Red Bull and Ferrari by a remarkable gap.
Wolff: Too much performance gap
Speaking in relation to sprint races, Mercedes Benz team principal Toto Wolff stated that “I think the reason why races have less entertainment is because there’s just too much performance gap between the teams.”
The boss of the German group said, “If you have Verstappen disappearing in a distance, the two Ferraris being the only entertainment during the race, and then we are in the middle of nowhere in no man’s land.
“Then the others are further behind, and then you have DRS trains. That never can make a good sprint race.”
More Formula 1 sprint races next year?
The FIA is considering the option of increasing sprint races to six by 2023, and Wolff hopes Formula 1 President Stefano Domenicalli will take note of which circuits to hold them at.
“If I had to trust one person to pick the right sprint races, it would be Stefano,” he said.
Mercedes is the fourth team with the most points in sprint races: it has only managed six points in the two events held so far in 2022, all in the Austrian GP (Russell was fourth and Hamilton eighth), while McLaren has achieved 7 points. Ferrari has accumulated 25 and Red Bull, 26.