Mercedes F1 knew even before the F1 tests and the first race in Bahrain that the concept of the car needed to change. Mercedes’ 2023 F1 car, the W14, has turned out to be no match for the underwhelming Red Bull team, making the start of the new season difficult.
Shortly after qualifying for the season opener in Bahrain, Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff said the team had already thrown in the towel on its design concept and was embarking on a completely new direction. Some suggested that the team was in a hurry after making the comment in just one session, but since then Mercedes has realized for weeks that it needs to do something different. Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin revealed that Mercedes F1 had been calculating the W14’s limits in the wind tunnel and realized that the improvements were not going as planned. “You can see the rate of development in the wind tunnel. Even before we went to Bahrain, there was talk of finding a starting point for a bigger concept,” explains Shovlin. “That’s what we’ve been doing for the last ten years, not just looking at the development of the car this year. “”You often want to explore an area and unlock it.” “Before Bahrain, it had already happened. But maybe after the early races there was a rush to bring that part to the circuit. “One of the biggest changes that Mercedes plans to unlock early this season is overhaul of the Zero Pod concept. But Shovlin said the team will also need to overhaul other parts of the car if they are to find the performance it needs to beat Red Bull. When asked what what Wolff meant by “concept change”, Shovlin said, “Maybe you use the word concept to mean sidepods.” “This car is an evolution of last year’s car, a lot of it has to do with the side effect structure, so this obviously doesn’t give us the performance we want, so it’s a bigger deviation. “However, we know there are other things that need to be improved on the car.” I don’t think changing the look of the sidepods will close all those gaps.” It would be very wrong. “As well as working on the overall concept, Mercedes also faces the challenge of getting Lewis Hamilton more familiar with the car, which suffers from a lack of rear end stability. Shovlin said there are many areas where the W14 needs to be better for Hamilton and George Russell. “Sometimes the cars don’t have entry stability, which means they don’t have confidence in the car,” Shovlin said. “It’s a bit difficult to turn the tires on and they slide too quickly,” he said. “Throughout the session we received feedback from both drivers and that was reflected in the development process and ultimately the car for Lewis. improve on that, we can improve for George.”
