Mercedes looking at 'every single area' to improve W13 – Wolff

Mercedes is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to resolve the issues impacting its W13, but Toto Wolff says the team will tackle 'low hanging fruit' in the short term to try and improve its performance.

Mercedes' pre-season preparations started off on a positive note in Barcelona where Lewis Hamilton and George Russell topped the timesheet.

But in Bahrain last week, the team took a step backwards, its car's handling undermined by persistent porpoising and significant understeer.

While others played down Mercedes' worries, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton's lap times on the opening day of running in Bahrain unfortunately validated the Brackley squad's plight.

Mercedes is digging in deep to address its issues, starting with a few solutions that will hopefully procure short-term gains.

"We need to look at every single area on the car – aero, weight, power unit – all of that," Wolff explained. "In Formula 1 there is never one solution.

"But I think there is low-hanging fruit that we need to tackle for the next races which will improve our overall performance. And then there’s more complex things and we are tackling each of those."

Mercedes' problems coincided with the introduction in Bahrain last week of a significant upgrade package centered around the team's 'zero sidepod' concept.

"We started the season well in Barcelona and then went backwards from there on," added Wolff. "So now it’s about really understanding.

"Whatever we do now is, in a way, a process. We can do things quickly and we can do more sophisticated and profound changes over the mid-term and this is what we’re aiming to do."

• Read also: Russell says Mercedes 'throwing everything at it' as struggles persist

Wolff admitted to be taken aback by his team's relative underperformance.

"I’m surprised in a way, yes, because you set the expectations and so far we couldn’t reach them," he said. "But I guess you just need to understand and learn from there on.

"As I always say, every season the points go to zero and particularly in a season where the regs have changed considerably, you have no entitlement to whatsoever performance.

"Now we have to understand better in qualifying and in the race tomorrow, we don’t know where we stand. And if it’s not good enough, then this team have proved that we can just grind ourselves out of non-performance."

Ahead of the Bahrain GP weekend, Wolff earmarked Red Bull as favourites, and so far, the Milton-Keynes-based team's performance has confirmed his prediction.

"I think Red Bull is in a league of their own and then there’s a bunch of teams that are within a corridor of fuel weight and an engine modes," concluded Wolff.

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