Mercedes had a drastic drop in performance in the 2022 campaign. While it was their concept that was dragging them back, the porpoising problem amplified their issues significantly. The Silver Arrows had a lot of struggles developing the W13 because of the recurring porpoising problem that often gave Lewis Hamilton a backache.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was furious in a scene in Netflix Drive to Survive S5, where he yelled at a team principals’ meeting that also included F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali. The Austrian threatened everyone, “I’m going to come after you”.
Cut forward to 2023, the Brackley team were in a better situation, with a win in Brazil at the end of 2022. However, this is where they made their next mistake of not capitalizing on the 15 mm car ride height rule change. Mercedes technical director James Allison stated how there was a “big debate internally” on this matter.
According to The Race, Allison summarized how the team made a mistake with their “cautious” approach to focus on the downforce. He said, “Now, as it turns out, it was too cautious. It was possible to cash in the 15mm.”
“We would have been better placing our chips on that part of the roulette wheel. Then we’d have got much sooner to the performance we’re at now”, added Allison. The delay in changing the W14 concept was a strategic misstep and Mercedes could have avoided the disappointment it experienced in 2023.
How Toto Wolff got fed up on realizing the root cause of Mercedes’ problems
After Lewis Hamilton finished 50 odd seconds behind Max Verstappen at the Bahrain GP, Toto Wolff realized Mercedes’ true problem. The W14 concept was “not good enough” to compete at the top. The Austrian boss admitted the same post-Bahrain.
He said, “We gave it our best go over the winter, and now we just need to all regroup, sit down with the engineers, who are totally not dogmatic about anything. There are no holy cows, and decide what is the development direction that we want to pursue in order to be competitive to win races.”
A second year of struggle for Mercedes, after being #F1’s dominant force for so long, will have hurt. It knows it cannot allow the decline to become a trend in 2024 ⬇️https://t.co/GF0M80ZsQu
— Motorsport.com (@Motorsport) December 17, 2023
However, even after all the concept overhaul, the Silver Arrows did not find consistent performance. In some races, they used to be the second-best team. On other weekends, they had a horror show with nothing to be happy about. The Brazilian GP is a perfect case in point of the latter.
Even during qualifying in Abu Dhabi, Wolff was frustrated over the inconsistencies of the W14. He stated, “I’m fed up with having explanations on why it didn’t go well. We were good in the hot, we weren’t in the cold. Previous days it has been the other way around.”
Regardless, Wolff was happy that they wouldn’t have to bear the pain of the W14 anymore. He stated, “I’m happy this was the last qualifying of the season and we will come with a new car.”
After two forgettable seasons, Wolff and Mercedes expect 2024 to be their comeback year. The team boss cited his expectations lately on the W15 and how they are “changing the concept”.
