Mercedes Team Says It’s Too Early To Call Them A "Favorite" - BenzInsider.com

Mercedes Team Says It’s Too Early To Call Them A “Favorite”

Giancarlo Perlas February 4, 2014

Despite a disappointing first day of testing at Jerez when Lewis Hamilton crashed his Mercedes W05 to the rubber barrier after a mechanical failure, Mercedes team rebounded by showing a strong performance in the following days of testing by completing a race distance in the track.

The good showing of Mercedes was opposite to the fortune of Red Bull, which experienced cooling and power unit issues. This has led fans to root more for Mercedes at the pre-season testing. Currently, the F1 community sees Mercedes as a potential world champion that would unseat Red Bull in the top ranks. Also, the team is being dubbed as a “favorite” this year.

Toto Wolff played down talks that Mercedes is about to steal the spotlight of Red Bull in the 2014 season though. Based on his interview with Yahoo! Sports, it is still too early to lay claim on Red Bull’s spot.

Looking at the past, he reminded that the teams usually dubbed as “favorites” during the testing do not always remain that way when the season actually starts or finishes. The Motorsport chief of Mercedes added that no team had shown its full performance yet so it is still very early to get everyone’s hopes up.

When Wolff was asked about his take on the recent performance of his team, he said that they are “cautiously satisfied”. Although their car seemed to be reliable in the testing, he stated that he cannot assure yet of its performance. But he cleared out that he, together with his team, is very optimistic and he commended his guys for doing a great job.