Mercedes Chief Gives Up On Ground Effect Era With Sad News Ahead of 2025 Season

Saajan Jogia | Feb 2, 2025

2024 Chinese Grand Prix, Sunday - Toto Wolff / Sebastian Kawka/Mercedes

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has given up on the current ground effect era regulations, suggesting that his team "won't be able to get rid of the fluctuations" that the existing period has been known for. Wolff also pointed out that no team on the grid has been able to consistently perform well on all kinds of circuits under different weather conditions, owing to aerodynamic challenges.

The Brackley outfit has struggled since the ground effect era began in 2022, a stark contrast to its dominant run in the hybrid era from 2014, during which it secured eight Constructors' Championships. While Mercedes took the wrong development route initially, only to gradually improve the design to the point where the car could win four races in the 2024 season, Wolff reckons the problems won't be solved entirely and hinted that there will be races where his drivers Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell will struggle in 2025.

The current year marks the last of the infamous era, a period where Red Bull dominated for the first two years, but faced the ground effect wrath last year with balance problems on the RB20 F1 car. The 2024 season saw Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari take turns to win Grands Prix, leading Wolff to claim that none of the teams were able to design a car that could perform well on all circuits. Speaking to Auto Motor und Sport, as reported by RacingNews365, he said:

"All four teams that have won races [last year] have experienced these ups and downs. Nobody has designed a car that was consistently good across all race tracks and all weather conditions.

"McLaren had a great car for maximum downforce and hot weather. The Ferrari was also more on that side.

"Our car was fast when there were fast corners and the temperatures were cold. The Red Bull could sometimes do one thing and sometimes the other."

The Austrian team principal admitted that performance fluctuations are here to stay in the sport in 2025. He said:

"I hope that we draw the right conclusions from this over the winter and adjust the development direction for the 2025 car.

"We won't be able to get rid of these fluctuations completely. We will also see them next year with all the teams."

Revealing the key to squeezing out performance in the upcoming season without upsetting the aerodynamics too much, Wolff added:

"The trick is to be on the good side as often as possible.

"You start to correlate patterns - race tracks where your car is good, practice sessions where you pushed your car, tyre compounds with which the car harmonises better, track temperatures that are good for the car."