Toto Wolff said Mercedes missed the outspoken approach of former non-executive chairman Niki Lauda, especially during the struggles of the past year and a half.
Three-time champion Lauda was an integral part of the dominant Mercedes team until his death in 2019.
Lauda regularly enters races in that role and supports Wolff, while Lewis Hamilton frequently states how influential the Austrian is on the team.
The magic that dominated Mercedes’ eight consecutive constructors’ titles came to a halt last year, with a single race win and they are even further away from the championship in 2023.
When asked how the team lacked Lauda, Wolff said: “Niki missed all these years because Niki always simplified things into what really matters.
“I’m having to think about what he’s going to say, and how he’s going to position himself [things]and we both work well together in the sense that sometimes oversimplification can lead you straight to the end.
“But there’s a lot of nuance. This is a technical sport, so maybe my role is to translate it in a way that we can actually implement it in automotive design.
“But this is very simple: the chronograph is never wrong, and we see on the data that we are flawed and that needs to be corrected.”
Mercedes abandoned its radical 2023 concept after seeing how far Red Bull’s pace this year has fallen.
The team is expected to work towards Red Bull’s vehicle design and prepare the upgrade for the Imola race in May.
