The Silver Arrows camp arrived in Melbourne optimistic about taking a “huge step forward”, with Lewis Hamilton defending the W15 as an “amazing car” and not being an “evil sister”.
This followed driver complaints that the team was falling back in the opening races of the new year, with Mercedes starting strongly in free practice only to regress in qualifying and the race.
But Mercedes motorsport boss Wolff called out a difficult Friday showing in Melbourne after his drivers slipped from third (George Russell) and ninth (Hamilton) in FP1 to sixth and 18th.
Laying the blame with extreme set-up changes between the two sessions that “massively backfired”, the Austrian told Sky Sports: “We’ve achieved the experiments, but we haven't unlocked performance.
“In the second session, we have gone through a really quite dramatic set-up change on Lewis. That has massively backfired. But this is why we are having those sessions.
“On the other side [with Russell], it was a bit better. But we are lacking performance.
“I think on a single lap, if you finish a set lap, we are a bit better. But overall, it wasn't a good thing.
Source: Autosport