The new aerodynamics regulations haven’t been kind to Mercedes. From being the dominant side that won eight titles in a row, Mercedes is now a doubtful fourth-best team on the grid.
Such underwhelming projections for this season after the first two races aren’t obviously suiting the Silver Arrows. Therefore, the team’s leadership is looking for fixes that can bring them at par with their rivals.
Mike Elliott, the technical director at Mercedes, reveals how most of the engineering workforce is busy finding the faults in the current aero design and troubleshooting the problem.
Mike Elliott reveals Mercedes is failing to find a solution
The W14 has been a complex problem for Mercedes to solve. Even its predecessor W13 had its own faults, and learning from past mistakes wasn’t enough for the Brackley-based team. Thus, they are looking for what they missed to make a relatively slower car than Red Bull, Ferrari, and even Aston Martin.
“Are we targeting the right things? Are we pushing the aerodynamics in the right direction? We’re looking at the mechanical setup of the car: are there things there that are missing?” reveals Elliott.
The season start has been grim for Mercedes. Even if they find some significant fixes, it seems unlikely they can do a dramatic climb in the table and topple Red Bull from the top of the standings.
Lewis Hamilton claims he warned
Lewis Hamilton hasn’t limited himself in highlighting the faults of Mercedes publicly. After the inaugural race of the season, the seven-time world champion accused Mercedes of not listening to him while designing the car.
He added that he has enough experience to know what makes a good car and give them constructive advice. However, his comments received some criticism from F1 experts who thought Hamilton was playing a blame game here.
In the next Grand Prix’s press conference, Hamilton accepted the critique and admitted that his wording was wrong. But he didn’t step away from his statement that Mercedes W14 ‘isn’t right’. He even stated when he first saw the 2023 car by his team, he instantly knew there were faults.
