10/03/2023
NEWS STORY
Mercedes trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin has said that there will be visible changes to the team's 2023 contender in the next few races.
After losing out to Aston Martin, not to mention Ferrari and Red Bull, Toto Wolff described the Bahrain Grand Prix as one of Mercedes "worst days in racing", in a rare public meltdown he vowed that drastic changes would be made, not ruling out resorting to a B-Car.
Following talk of an "emergency meeting" at Brackley after Lewis Hamilton claimed the team ignored his advice in terms of issues that were carried over from the W14's predecessor, and where, according to the British tabloids, technical director Mike Elliot was given an "ultimatum", Andrew Shovlin outlined some of the team's plan in a Bahrain video debrief.
"People have tended to use the word concept when they mean the sidepod design," he explained. "Toto had said recently that we're looking at a revision that is going to come along in the next few races.
"Given the gap to the front, of course we're going to look at bigger departures, more radical changes," he continued. "But those changes take time to turn into a faster solution in the wind tunnel.
"You can't do them overnight," he insisted, "there's quite a lot of development that you've got to do around any sort of big change in geometry in that area.
"Of course, we're looking at where we can improve the car. We're looking for potential to develop and you will see visible changes coming on the car over the next few races."
The main issues with the W14 are the lack of downforce, particularly at the front, and excessive tyre degradation.
"Ultimately we've got a lot of work to do," said Shovlin, in a masterpiece of understatement. "That gap in qualifying was quite large, we were over half a second to the front. In the race, that was even bigger, though that was compounded by the fact that once you get 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.
"There's a lot that we need to understand. The key things are really getting on top of that long run degradation.
"Last year that was a strong point for us," he added. "Clearly we've got something that's not in the right place that we need to work on.
"The other one is ultimately the performance gap to the front, the raw pace of the car is not good enough. We're working very hard at the moment to understand what we can do in the short-term future and the mid-term future to try and get ourselves in a better place."
Meanwhile, as the media picks up on Hamilton's comments, which other than being highly critical of the team, come at a time he has yet to agree a new deal with Mercedes, Wolff was keen to play down any suggestion of a rift.
"The Lewis situation is you heard him on the radio," said the Austrian. "He is an integral part of the team, picking the team up and we are all sticking together and I don't think that is going to change just because we had a start that was really bad.
"We have won eight Constructors' Championships and six Drivers' Championships with him and that relationship holds.
"As much as being transparent as to how we need to turn the car around, it is not the point to talk about the driver situation in 2024," he insisted. "It is far too early, we need to all push in the same direction, the drivers, the engineers, all the management rather than throwing in the towel. We have never done that and we will not do it.
"We just need to really dig deep and deeper than we have every done and provide both drivers with a car they are able to fight with."