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Wolff rules out Mercedes catching Red Bull in 2023

With Red Bull beginning 2023 in dominant fashion, Toto Wolff says Mercedes are not in a position to be overhauling the drinks-backed outfit this year.

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff says it isn't realistic forhis side to catch the pace-setting Red Bulls in 2023. Red Bull have finished 1-2 in dominant fashion across both racesso far this year, prompting rival teams to suggest that the drinks-backed squadcould win every race in 2023. With Mercedes having admitted that their W14 concept will neverbe truly competitive, and having committed to a major revamp of their 2023 car, Wolffacknowledged that there was no realistic hope of the Silver Arrows beating Red Bullthis year. "We're just two races in this year, but is it realistic when welook at the gaps? No, it's not. "But we just want to give it all we have and then see what theoutcome of that is."

Wolff highlights improvement shown with W13

Wolff added that Mercedes were taking comfort from themid-season improvement they had shown with last year's W13. That car began 2022 suffering with severe bouncing andporpoising issues, but got steadily more competitive as the year wore on, and endedit with George Russell winning the Brazilian Grand Prix. "We've been able to catch up a lot last year with a car that wasbouncing way too much, and that in a way was overshadowing everything. "Finally, we won a race and got closer to [Red Bull], and Ithink that needs to be the aspiration."

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