Buxton says Wolff thinks Mercedes’ update may have cost four or five tenths

Mercedes’ major update did not bring the performance boost it wanted at Sepang. Will Buxton said on the *Up To Speed* podcast that Toto Wolff thought the package may instead have cost the team around four or five tenths.

The changes were aimed at improving medium-to-high-speed downforce. Buxton framed the cause as an open question: had the update failed, or had Malaysia-specific circumstances kept Mercedes from getting what it wanted from it?

Mercedes said on 5 October that it had identified areas for further investigation and needed more evidence before drawing firm conclusions. Antonelli said Sepang’s tarmac and high temperatures made it “a little bit of an outlier”; he hoped Mercedes would understand the package better and extract more of its potential in Singapore.

Antonelli said Russell would return to the previous package while he committed to the new one for the whole weekend. Mercedes said it would evaluate both versions across the weekend to help decide which direction to take.