Mercedes Top Engineer Admits Getting “Too Cautious” to Ensure Safety Hurt Them in the Competition Against Dominant Red Bull

Sabyasachi Biswas | 12/08/2023
Mercedes Top Engineer Admits Getting “Too Cautious” to Ensure Safety Hurt Them in the Competition Against Dominant Red Bull

The Mercedes AMG F1 team finds themselves comfortably seated in P2 in the Constructors’ championship. Even though it seems like one slot away from the top, the gap between the leading Red Bull and them is massive. As the Silver Arrows are no more in a position to vie for the title, Mike Elliot revealed that their “too cautious” approach to safety was what hurt them in development.

Red Bull is leading the world championship with 503 points as F1 enters its summer break. Majestically, they claimed all 12 wins in 12 rounds so far. Compared to them, the Silver Arrows look bleak as they trail the defending champions by 256 points.

This also highlights the fact that the dominant Milton Keynes outfit now has double the points Mercedes have. Most importantly, Max Verstappen alone has more points than the entire Brackley brigade. All this despite being in the quest for redemption at Mercedes.

Admittedly, the team has made quite an improvement from last year. They made significant progress after rectifying their porpoising issue and this was followed by their sidepod and floor overhauling.

Elliot revealed what kept Mercedes at bay despite improvements

Elliot, the Mercedes Chief Technical Officer has recently opened up on what put buffers into Mercedes’ advancements. Talking about this, the British engineer said that they had two ways to go. Go aggressive or go safe and the team decided to go with the latter.

In doing so, they had less painful paths to rectify when they went wrong and this was what hurt them from going against Red Bull, stated the 49-year-old according to The Race.

“We chose the cautious path, knowing that it would be less painful to correct if we were wrong. The story of our year so far has been mostly about finding out that we had been too cautious and making the changes to correct that,” he added.

The better half of the 2023 season is over. With just 10 races left, Mercedes Technical Director James Allison revealed that the Silver Arrows will go the way of developing their 2024 F1 challenger.

Lewis Hamilton and his 2023 expectations

Star driver Lewis Hamilton lately conveyed that competing against the mighty RB-19 is unrealistic this year. With the superior straight-line speed and mammoth DRS advantage, the W14 is weak against the Red Bull challenger.

However, it’s a never say never mindset for Hamilton. If not this year, he believes the team will do their part for the next. But for now, the Silver Arrows will look to keep their P2 position against the likes of Aston Martin, Ferrari, and McLaren.

As things stand, the German giants very much look to be in control of P2 even if the British or the Italian team are very close. If they can, it’ll be an impressive improvement from where they were in the 2022 F1 season.

Post Edited By: Shreya Sanjeev
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Red Bull

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Sabyasachi Biswas

Sabyasachi Biswas is an F1 journalist at The SportsRush. With over one and a half decades of love for the sport and five years of experience in the field, he dreams to be a regular at the paddock when the lights go out. A Red Bull fan and F1 fan in general over the years, he enjoyed watching Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen dominate the track. Apart from F1, he's also a big-time Madridista and Federer fanatic. He was a sub-junior level footballer, won inter-district quizzes and debate competitions back in school. A travel freak throughout, he tries different cuisines and learns new cultures whenever he's away from the keyboard.

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