"That was morally and emotionally important": Mercedes boss picks a standout moment for the German team in 2023

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff recently picked a standout moment for his team in the 2023 F1 season. Despite an overall unsatisfactory season for the Silver Arrows, the Austrian billionaire chose the 2023 F1 Abu Dhabi GP as a good moment for the team, in which George Russell finished third.

Speaking in an exclusive Mercedes AMG F1 YouTube video about the 2023 F1 season review, Toto Wolff initially chose the 2023 F1 Brazilian GP as a bad moment for the Brackley-based team and pointed out the contrast from last year's race at Interlagos.

He then went on to select the 2023 F1 Abu Dhabi GP as a good moment. Wolff claimed that he does not care too much about his drivers finishing second or third, acknowledging how morally important the race was for the Silver Arrows.

"Good moment was Sunday night in Abu Dhabi. I never paid, like, big attention to P2, P3. You want to come in P1, but then doing it and being able to score that was emotionally and morally important for the team, and that was a good moment," said the Mercedes team boss.

At the 2023 F1 Abu Dhabi GP, George Russell qualified fourth, while Lewis Hamilton was all the way down in 11th. While the seven-time world champion had a horrendous race and was only able to climb to ninth, George Russell managed to bag a podium finish by securing the third place.

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Mercedes team boss predicts Red Bull's development cycle for 2024

Since Mercedes has dominated in Formula 1 for quite a massive chunk of time, their team principal, Toto Wolff, is well aware of when the top teams start developing their future machines. Speaking to the media at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, Wolff speculated that current world champions Red Bull must have started working on their 2024 F1 car after July, something his team used to do back when they were dominating the sport.

He said (via PlanetF1.com):

“I’m sure that Red Bull has probably switched off – there is no such thing as switching off [completely], but they will have started next year’s car way ahead of everybody else. If we were in this situation, looking at our historic strategy, we would probably have been all hands on deck by July on next year’s car."

Red Bull ended the 2023 F1 season scoring a whopping 860 points, while Mercedes finished second with only 409 points.