The team debuted a significant package of changes to the bodywork and suspension, which was to be held for the first time at last weekend’s canceled Imola event.
Despite the obvious setbacks of getting to know the new package on a tough street circuit, the team decided to keep them in the car and ride them for a few miles.
Lewis Hamilton he finished FP2 in sixth place while his teammate George Russell was 12.
“It’s difficult with Monaco, it’s really hard to judge,” Wolff told Autosport when asked about the improvements.
“But at least we haven’t seen any car behavior that could be considered really negative.”
Asked if the car gives drivers the confidence they need, he said: “I’ve never heard a driver in Monaco say he feels fine!
“I think it’s always on a knife’s edge. You saw it with (Carlos) Sainz. So it doesn’t get a lot of high praise, but it definitely goes in the right direction.”
Wolff stressed that he is proud of the effort put in by the team to bring the new parts to the track.
“Huge,” he said. “You see, the whole body is different, the front suspension, the floor is different.
“It’s been a mega job for everyone in Brackley to deliver this, and now this is our new baseline and we have to work from here.”
Wolff also noted that after a disappointing FP1 session, Red Bull made progress in session two and is counting Max Verstappen showed that he is one step ahead of the rest of the pack.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14
Photo: Mark Sutton / Motorsport images
“Max has been in his class for a long time. I think we’re pretty close for one lap at least today, but in the long run you see a car that has performance and no degradation. Good job.”
Despite only being sixth in the headlines, Hamilton insisted it was a positive first day with the new package.
“Overall I had an amazing day, I really enjoyed riding today,” said the seven-time world champion.
“I want to say a very, very big thank you to everyone who came back to the factory because building, designing and developing a car is not an easy thing. And they all put in so much time, many hours of hard work to get us here today.
“I’m glad we were able to keep it on track for them. And I think we have a lot of data. I mean, it’s not the place for final testing and tweaking, but overall the car performed well.
“It’s a pity that at the end of the session we weren’t as close as I expected, but we definitely felt an improvement. We just have to chip away to see if we can squeeze anything out. more car juice.
Asked if there was a specific area for improvement, Hamilton said: “There is, but I won’t say where. There is an area and it is very clear to me where a lack is a lack of performances.
“We will talk about it in the summary. We’ll put our heads together and try to figure out how we can do it with what we have. And I hope it will give us a platform to grow further.”
Russell was also optimistic about improvements to the car.
“There are some positive signals to take from the session which have definitely improved over FP1,” he said. “It’s never easy here.
“We made a lot of changes, things we would have done on the previous iteration of the car as well.
“New updates are nothing special. We’ll be working all night to see what else we can do to get more out of the tire.
“We know the basic performance of the car is good. We usually perform better on Sunday and worse on Saturday. So we have to try to reverse those results this weekend.”
