Mercedes fell from grace after the new regulations kicked in at the start of the 2022 season. The team is a skeleton of what it used to be, and Lewis Hamilton recently complained that he does not feel connected to the car. Amidst a significant struggle to get the W14 to work, Chief Technical Officer Mike Elliot reveals the exact shortcomings of the Mercedes car.
Mercedes started off the 2022 season exceptionally poorly as the W13 suffered from significant bouts of porpoising. The team back at Brackley managed to get on top of the issue, and the Silver Arrows finally managed to win a race in Brazil. However, it has been another disaster for the team ever since then.
🚨| Expect to see more upgrades on the W14 after the summer break!
Mike Elliot has confirmed Mercedes will “keep bringing some upgrades to the car” before switching full focus to the W15. pic.twitter.com/xGywaN2owV
— Mercedes-AMG F1 News (@MercedesNewsUK) August 2, 2023
The 2023 season saw yet another disappointing start for Mercedes. While some significant upgrades have brought the car back in contention for podiums, catching up with the dominant Red Bull and winning a race seems next to impossible.
Elliot reveals the main issue with their cars.
Per a report by PlanetF1, Mike Elliot revealed the exact issue plaguing Mercedes for the last two years. According to Elliot, Mercedes messed up by trying too hard to improve the car’s performance and thus putting it too close to the ground.
Running the car too close to the grounds meant that the suspension had to be stiffened up, and that is where Mercedes lost all their performance. Elliot explained, “Aerodynamically, these cars want to run close to the ground. And so, if you run them close to the ground, you have to run them stiff – and that’s one of the traps we fell into last year if we’re honest.”
#F1: Mike Elliott says the team fell into a “trap” of the 2022 regulations by running their car too close to the ground.
“For these cars, aerodynamically they want to run close to the ground. And so, if you run them close to ground, you have to run them stiff – and that’s one of…
— deni (@fiagirly) August 10, 2023
According to Elliot, a softer suspension helps a car adjust through the corner. It also allows the team to change the vehicle to find the best spot where the aerodynamic stability is the best. That has not been the case with the Mercedes, which has led to the car’s poor performance.
Elliot also explained that they cannot make radical changes to fix the issue immediately. Once a team chooses a specific design philosophy, they need to stick to it and slowly tweak things to how they want it to change.
The main goals of Mercedes
In a mid-season Q&A session published by the official website of Mercedes, Elliot revealed the two primary goals the team is currently working towards. The first one is to learn more and more from this year’s car to use the knowledge on next year’s car.
#F1: Mike Elliott: “Our aim is to win championships. Unfortunately, we are not in that position this year. But we want to be next year. We’ve got to get that balance right between getting all the learnings we can with our current car and trying to put most of our effort into next…
— deni (@fiagirly) August 11, 2023
The second goal is to claim P2 in the championship. Elliot explained that while it is not as good as winning a tournament, getting P2 at the end of the season will at least be a testament that the team is improving and heading in the right direction.
