While Mercedes struggle to find pace relative to the dominance of Red Bull and their soon-to-be triple F1 World Champion Max Verstappen, for this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, the German team have more updates for the W14 in the hope they can make inroads into the growing gap to the reigning World Champs.
The new direction taken after Monaco with the chassis has yet to pay full dividends. The change has not reduced the gap to Red Bull but certainly has them in a better place than they were most of last year.
Lewis Hamilton is driving his socks off the car to hammer home the point he has been making for the past year, that the zero-sidepod concept was a flop. Hence ditched. But it took a while and they are now playing catch up for stubbornness.
The pole in Hungary was more Hamilton than the car. On the other hand, a bad start and opening lap at Hingaroring was more Hamilton than the car. When it comes to problems, the saying "when it rains it pours" takes on new meaning for the once faultless, all-winning Mercedes team.
In his team's preview of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, Wolff first looked back on a so-so three days in Budapest for the former Champs: "Hungary was a weekend of highs and lows. Our pace was strong on Saturday and Sunday, but we didn't maximise that across the weekend. Lewis produced a brilliant lap to take pole position."
"On Sunday, we were too conservative with some of our decisions and ultimately missed out on a podium. George meanwhile was compromised in qualifying but drove a strong race from P18 to take P6.
"We also encountered cooling limitations across both cars; we likely had the second-fastest car, but we must execute better if we are to deliver our full potential. Nevertheless, we scored good points with both drivers and consolidated our P2 championship position," added Wolff.
First Aston Martin, now McLaren are humbling their PU-supplier
No mention of the fact that their customers, McLaren, have a better package right now than Mercedes themselves. A car effective enough for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to humble their PU-suppliers on a high-speed track like Silverstone and again at the Monaco-like Hungaroring. Earlier in the year it was an on-form Aston Martin team, with Fernando Alonso behind the wheel doing the humbling.
Looking ahead to Spa-Francochamps Sprint race weekend, Wolff continued: "We will be aiming to turn those learnings into actions for this weekend. Spa-Francorchamps is a classic venue and a true challenge for both the cars and drivers, especially in the Sprint format with such limited practice time on a long and challenging lap.
"We will be bringing updates this weekend as part of our ongoing development programme. We hope this will be another small step forward in improving the W14.
"As we have seen at many races this year though, it is hard to predict where we will be relative to our competitors. Wherever the true pace of our car is here, we want to maximise the outcome in this final race before the summer shutdown," declared Wolff.
Perhaps for Mercedes and their boss "it is hard to predict where we will be relative to our competitors" but not for most onlookers. They will be the second-best team relative to Red Bull who are miles ahead of all their rivals, by how much around that long lap is what really remains to be seen.
If Mercedes are not winning, as for where they are relative to the rest? The answer in words Wolff made famous last year: "Second is the first loser!" So, who cares?
2023 Formula 1 standings ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, Round 12:
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