After the second last race of the 2023 season. The gap between Red Bull and the rest of the grid became evident. No team had even half the points Red Bull scored alone and while it looked like they were racing against time, the P2 position was what Ferrari and Mercedes wanted.

Although Mercedes was in its prime just a few years ago, the gap that is there now looks difficult to close. Ferrari, the team that has not seen a win since 2008, looks like it’s getting back on its game. Looking at this, Lewis Hamilton decided to leave the team that was going backward to join the Prancing Horses. But what’s surprising is that Toto Wolff already knew that things were not right.

Toto Wolff’s take on fighting for P2

“We have a problem. Clearly, we’ve underperformed,” Toto Wolff told Drive to Survive in an interview segment. “Certainly not what we aimed for. So this is, let’s say a dynamic situation,” he continued trying to get a hold of what was going on. Toto Wolff looked under the pressure of not being at the top. The team has suffered for a while since Red Bull broke their spell.

Lewis Hamilton is one of the most highly achieved drivers in the world. The fact that he saw Ferrari moving ahead of Mercedes put the team under a lot of pressure. Toto Wolff explained, “Fighting for P2 is a formidable challenge against Fred. So obviously, the pressure is big.” Announcing his biggest goal at the moment, he said, “We just gotta beat the Ferraris.”

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But while Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff were always an inseparable team, the time came when the driver decided that “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” And left Toto Wolff for Ferrari’s improving car. In the end, Hamilton signed with the Red team for 2025 for 2 years and it looks like he has decided to race with the Prancing Horses towards the end of his career. But then the question stands, how close to Mercedes were Ferrari in 2023?

Mercedes vs Ferrari 2023

The end of 2023 was a bumper-to-bumper battle between Mercedes and Ferrari. While Mercedes is used to taking the lead, Ferrari had a better overall run. But in the end, the Silver Arrow beat the team in Red by just 3 points. And while Mercedes came in 2nd, it was extremely close and Ferrari had a strong chance to win too.

Everything boiled down to the final race in Abu Dhabi. While Red Bull had already won the cup along with the World Champion title, it was all about P2 for Ferrari and Mercedes. In the end, Lewis Hamilton pulled through, but with great difficulty considering the car’s lack of power.

It looks like that has been the only problem with Mercedes for a while now, with both the drivers in the team being highly capable of achieving podiums. Although George Russell is much younger than Hamilton, he has always done a good job in trying to get as many points as possible for the team.

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Next season will be different for the driver, with Hamilton gone and a new teammate taking his place. Who do you think will take the seat and avenge the betrayal that Toto Wolff felt when the 39-year-old Briton left the team? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.