Toto Wolff eyes Mercedes improvement to leave performance 'no man's land'

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has said that the team is learning all the time but needs to get out of the ‘no man’s land’ they are in at the moment in terms of their performance.

The Silver Arrows have had a tough campaign so far with them, at best, the third quickest team on the grid with their car offering up a multitude of issues.

In fairness, they looked like they had made progress in Spain but they always thought Monaco would knock them back a little again, and so it proved with George Russell in 5th and Lewis Hamilton in 8th.

However, they will feel on the more open layout of Baku compared to Monte-Carlo they’ll be able to show signs of progress once again, and Wolff is just hoping that they can kick on and close the gap to Ferrari and Red Bull out in front before too long.

“I think we are the third team,” said Wolff.

“We’re not second and we’re not fourth. We have two extremely strong drivers, but it is a huge annoyance for all of us that the gap is about the same.

“If you’re looking at it optimistically, it’s five-tenths. If you’re looking at it pessimistically, it’s more than eight-tenths. And that is clearly for all of us at Mercedes not acceptable.

“I think we’re learning at the moment at every track. Literally every kilometre that we’re doing is an important lesson on how we can improve the car, to be honest.

“But we just need to get out of this no man’s land in which we are at the moment.”