Parent company Daimler will continue to back the efforts of the Mercedes F1 team as long as it perceives it to be doing its best to return to win the championship.

The German manufacturer bought the championship winning Brawn (nee BAR, nee Honda) team in 2010, scoring just one win in three years of racing.

As the Brackley-based outfit continues to pour money into its campaign, seeking the best engineering, management and strategic talent, having already lured Lewis Hamilton from McLaren, Toto Wolff insists that its parent is not losing patience.

"If we are perceived as a front-running team, among the top three, four team, we will be given time," he told BBC Sport.

Echoing, Nick Fry's mantra of 'we are a young team' during the Honda days, he added: "We need to be successful but Mercedes understand you cannot build a winning team in a short time frame.

"It's about putting together the right ingredients," he continued. "If you look at what has worked in the past, even Benetton, the glory days of Ferrari, the glory days of McLaren, you can see there was a group of people which could almost interact non-verbally with each other. They fitted them together, the engine was good, the driver was good, the chassis was solid. The management worked with each other, a good group of mechanics, a good group of engineers, good technical director, a creative mind in the design office and aero department and a good businessman and politician safeguarding all these guys from the nasty bits. And in order to put that together you need time."