Photo: Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
A less than ideal start to 2023 has placed Mercedes on the back foot, as they attempt to get back to the front of the Formula One field.
Team Principal, Toto Wolff, admitted last week that the team ‘must commit to one car concept’, as they consider a move away from the ‘zero-pod’ aerodynamic philosophy.
Following the underwhelming result in Bahrain, Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin, revealed that ‘you will see visible changes coming on the car over the next few races.’ as he addressed some of the teams woes in the race debrief.
Speaking about some of the flaws on the W14, he said ”Given the gap to the front, of course we’re going to look at bigger departures and more radical changes.
”But those changes take time to turn into a faster solution in the wind tunnel. So you can’t do them overnight. There’s quite a lot of development that you’ve got to do around any sort of big change in geometry in that area.”
The German outfit have suffered at the hands of an ambitious design for two seasons now. Lewis Hamilton’s contract is set to end at the conclusion of this season, and if they are to convince him to stay, they have to prove that they are capable of making more race-winning machinery for him to sit in.
Shovlin agreed that there is an uphill battle ahead, adding: ”Ultimately, we’ve got a lot of work to do. So that gap in Qualifying was quite large, we were over half a second to the front.
”In the race that was even bigger though, and that was compounded by the fact that when you get the tyre degradation, you get a bit more sliding, the tyres run hotter and you end up finding it very difficult to keep them under any kind of control.”
Despite a difficult period for the team, Shovlin was happy to take a positive from the weekend, stating: ”Seeing how well the team has worked together, it’s a very difficult start to the year and after the season we had in 2022.
”We certainly didn’t wish for this sort of challenging start, but everyone’s been very quick to acknowledge that problem. We know we’ve got a tough journey ahead of us, but we’re committed to improving the car, to trying and getting back to the front.”
Their next opportunity to improve will be next weekend in Jeddah, a track that hasn’t always suited their car, but they will be hoping that they can at least make some progress further towards their rivals.
