Photo Credits: Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
Last Sunday’s British Grand Prix saw Max Verstappen claim his sixth consecutive win in a row – and eighth of the season as a whole. However, a large portion of the headlines belonged to McLaren who finished P3 and P4. The reason for this success came largely from upgrades which means the team’s MCL60 now has a greater resemblance to Red Bull Racing’s challenger – the RB19. Therefore, it is hardly surprising to hear Toto Wolff say that the direction Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team takes in 2024 may also have similarities with Red Bull Racing’s current concept.
Prior to the British Grand Prix, the 2023 Formula One season seemed to have been a battle between Mercedes and Aston Martin to see which team would be second best. This is because of the dominance of the RB19 which now leads the F1 Constructors’ Championship by a comprehensive 208 points.
However, this past weekend in Silverstone, everything changed because as Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff said in his post-race remarks to media: “Now we have the resurgence of McLaren.”
At the moment McLaren sits P5 in the standings on 59 points – compared to Mercedes in P2 with a tally of 203 points. Even so, with the season not yet at halfway, the final standings could be much closer should McLaren continue this form through to the end of the season.
Mercedes did find their way to the third step of the podium at last Sunday’s British Grand Prix through Sir Lewis Hamilton – thanks to a fortuitous Safety Car. Although, anyone watching the race knows that Oscar Piastri was desperately unlucky and Toto Wolff knows his team was extremely lucky. This was evident in his post-race remarks when he made clear that he is far from satisfied with the performance of the team’s W14. A point all the more disappointing for Mercedes having happened at Silverstone, a track which has brought them much success in the past.
“I think overall the car was not where we’ve seen it in Silverstone the last years,” stated Wolff. “That was the track that we were really dominant and strong, and the high speed was not good at all compared to our direct competitors and qualifying we were struggling also on traction on the exits. Overall, the car remains to be a handful.”
The battle between Aston Martin and Mercedes looks set to be a season-long one but Toto Wolff is only concerned with being able to challenge for victories. For that reason, he is happy to stop developing the W14 with any major upgrades so that all energy, time and resources can be devoted to his team’s 2024 challenger instead.
“We have no choice. P2, P3, fundamentally it doesn’t impact me and the team. It’s about coming back and being able to win a world championship in that respect. That’s not going to happen this year so we need to set our eyes onto next year and then see all the races to come to learn, develop and make sure that we can carry that forward into next year.
“But having said that, the regulations are the same so you’re not learning nothing by continuing this car. So it’s a balance that we need to strike right,” explained Wolff.
The fact that McLaren, a customer team of Mercedes, are now doing so well after their recent Red Bull Racing-inspired upgrades is not lost on the man seeking to bring Mercedes back to the front.
“The sidepods and the bodywork are just one part of the chassis. Clearly it looks like very interesting solutions that it opens up but most of the performance comes through the floor and diffuser and we haven’t seen how they interpreted the regulations and how they’ve done it.
“So in my opinion, it’s just the package. We see that the strong cars all look a little bit the same when you look from the side and from top-down. And certainly that has played in our minds already back in the day. But maybe that’s just a little more indication where it goes,” predicted Wolff.
Changing an underperforming concept of a car to look more like a dominant race-winning concept is easy in theory. Unfortunately though, when a team’s car is built in a certain way it is far more challenging to modify the existing model. Wolff explained to media that his team had tried a similar approach to Red Bull – but it wasn’t to be.
“We had the sidepod concept and the bodywork in the tunnel very early on already to see which avenues it would open up and how much it would add to performance. And the relative loss of the downforce, the way we measure it, was substantial.
“So it’s not something that we wanted to follow up on in the year. We changed our design direction, I think we have a great group of aerodynamics led by James [Allison] and I’m sure that it will be a consideration seeing the step they made,” said Wolff.
For this reason, the man leading Mercedes then explained that there are not any major W14 upgrades planned in the pipeline: “Do we believe that we have upgrades in there that are going to fundamentally change the car? I don’t believe so, but we have a few small steps that are to come.”
To hear this acceptance may be little surprise to fans of the Silver Arrows as they can see that both Championships are already out of sight. For a team that dominated the sport with 8 consecutive titles in the hybrid era to now be struggling so much is a reminder of just how quickly things change.
McLaren’s current slogan to celebrate its 60th Anniversary is ‘Forever Forward’, a feat they are certainly achieving at present. Time will tell as to whether the same can be said for the Silver Arrows as they endeavour to hit the target once more.
