Wolff: Pressure is growing on Mercedes

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Toto Wolff says the pressure on Mercedes is growing as Red Bull emerges as a bigger threat this season.

Mercedes started the year in dominant fashion but Red Bull capitalised on Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg retiring in Spain to win for the first time since 2014. Daniel Ricciardo then took pole position in Monaco to end Mercedes dominance in qualifying and Wolff has called on his team to focus on finding more performance.

"I've said this many times before - but we have no breathing space in this Championship," Wolff said. "Maintaining any advantage is a constant battle - and the pressure is only getting bigger.

"This unpredictable season has been great for the sport and shows that Formula One is alive and well. But, for us as a team, there is clearly work to do. There remains room for improvement in our reliability - but the push for more performance has become increasingly important too."

Wolff says Mercedes needs to continue to improve if it wants to remain competitive for as long as possible, having won back-to-back championship doubles.

"We saw the 50th Formula One win for the Silver Arrows in Monte Carlo, which is a great achievement. But if we are to build the long-term success that puts Mercedes-Benz up there with the iconic names of this sport, we will need to push harder than ever."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.