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Mercedes released a Q&A session with Mike Elliott! The Mercedes Technical Director talks about the technical aspects of the new car and more!
How has the off-season been for the team?
We have reflected on last year and addressed the areas we think we can improve. Now, there is excitement about getting ready for a new year, a new chance to show what we are capable of. The winter is always a huge hive of activity in the factory, taking concepts that you’ve got in aerodynamics and in vehicle dynamics, and bringing them to fruition in design. You’ve then got the final stages of finishing that work, testing to make sure that all the components such as the Power Unit, the chassis and the gearbox all come together and work properly. We are now at the stage of waiting to see what’s going to happen on track and where the car is going to be.
How would you describe the approach to designing the W14?
Last year, once we had figured out what we needed to do, it took a huge amount of work to get ourselves moving forward. Towards the end of the season, you could see the performance improving and the winter has been a reset. We have done all the things that we wanted to do with the W13 last year but couldn’t because of resource constraints or our focus was elsewhere fixing other issues.
What would you say those main areas of focus have been that you weren’t able to focus on last year?
Midway through last year, we understood what the problems were with the car. It wasn’t a specific part or concept, more the overall direction we were going in. If you attempt to change direction too quickly you can end up going too far the other way, so what we needed to do was take a step and then use that to prove the direction. The consequence is that it takes quite a long time to see the benefit. We saw positive progress towards the end of last season. Hopefully, we will continue on that path and building those learnings into the new car will bring dividends.
Would it be fair to then categorize W14 as more evolution than revolution?
From the outside, after eight years of winning back-to-back World Championships and then having a poor year, many might expect that we would be tearing up the drawings and starting again but that’s not the case. We believe there was a lot of goodness in the W13, along with some things that we didn’t like. For the W14, it’s about taking that goodness and carrying it forward, and correcting the issues that we had in the W13. From that point, it’s about making as much progress, as quickly as we can because that’s where the real gains come from in Formula One. Those gains come from learning and then turning that into performance.
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What effect do you think the regulation changes for this year will have?
Updated regulations, such as the raised floor height, are relatively minor changes. Raising the floor edge has affected the car aerodynamics and we must optimise around that. There are also some structural tests that we’ve got to overcome but that is within the scope of design work we do each year. We’ve also got new tyres for this year. That will influence the balance of the car so again, we will need to adjust to that. Overall though, they are small adjustments certainly compared to last year.
How impressed have you been with the attitude of the team?
If you look at last year and the challenges we faced, you might imagine that people were burying their heads in their hands and asking where we went wrong. The reaction from the whole team, however, was brilliant. We went through that learning phase at the beginning of last year, understanding the problems we had and then trying to turn that into development. Getting into a position where we were getting more competitive, and by the end of the season winning in Brazil, felt like a massive victory. We have carried that approach into the winter and said: “If we can make that much progress during the season, how much progress can we make in the winter?”We are under no illusions that it is going to be tough. We are starting behind and we are not the favourites. That is an unusual position for us to be in over the last 10 years, but we are focused on ourselves and working out how we do the best job we can. I have been really impressed and proud of the attitude of the team to do that.
How impressed have you been with the cooperation and collaboration between Brackley and Brixworth?
The relationship between Brackley and Brixworth improves every year as we develop. When you look at the season we just had, it was the chassis that was letting down the overall package but there was never a feeling of them and us. What happened is that we worked together, worked out how we can take what we have got on both sides and improve in all areas. It’s exciting to see the result of that continued closeness is this year.
What is the impact of having just three days of pre-season testing before the first race of the season?
We never really got on top of the car balance last year. All the normal work we do at the beginning of the season didn’t happen because of the problems we were trying to rectify. With only three days of testing this year, that has two big impacts. The first is in reliability. If we are not reliable in the test, then we will have very limited mileage to learn. We also won’t be able to measure the car’s absolute reliability too much, because over three days you are not going to get huge amounts of running. These cars are now so reliable that you need more mileage than three days to really start seeing some of the issues. The second big impact is that we’ve got to use our limited time as efficiently as possible. We’ve got to learn as much as we can, to work out how to get the most performance out of the car and what we can learn to feed into the next developments.
How important are simulation tools given the lack of pre-season testing time?
As we develop the car throughout the winter, we test as much as we can on rigs. We do everything we can to make sure that the car is reliable, and that the performance we expect is measured as best as we can. When we arrive at pre-season testing, we want to be as prepared as we can be but there is no substitute for the real thing. It’s running the car around a real, live racetrack that will help us learn. Although we go in to testing this year as prepared as we have ever been, doing all the work that we need to in three days will still be tough.
The W14 is striking in its appearance with some familiar details but also somedifferences from the W13. Is that a fair assessment?
With this generation of cars, the performance is all in the detail. A lot of that detail is in the floor, so it is not very visible to the fans. When you look at the W14, you will see the DNA of the W13 but also a lot of evolution and detail improvement. That may surprise some people but in all the testing we have done, we have seen no reason to move away from our concept. The problems that we faced last year, particularly with the bouncing, were not a result of the geometry of the car. Overall, I think you will see the DNA of the W13 but also a lot of evolution and detail improvement. If we were to explain all the details that we have changed and why we have changed them, it would show the huge amount of work that has gone into this car.
How proud do you feel when you see the new car roll out of the garage at Silverstone for shakedown?
The car is a representation of the work that over 2,000 people at Brackley and Brixworth have put in, so it is a proud moment. It’s always a huge thing to see it run on track, with everyone’s hopes and expectations tied to it. If it is competitive, we will be even more proud.
Are you already looking at the next updates we can bring to the car?
We will run this car at shakedown and testing, but we’ve already got developments lined up for the first few races. Our big aim at testing will be to understand more about the car and unlocking its performance. It is about gathering all the information, then working out how we can bring the most performance to the car as quickly as we possibly can over the next few months.
How motivated are you and the team for 2023?
We had a tough season last year by our standards, but I am proud of how the team pulled together to produce the improvements we saw at the end of the season. I am very excited to see what those efforts, and those over the winter, have turned into. Wherever we start 2023 though, our fans and our partners can be sure that we will be pushing as hard as we possibly can so that when we reach Abu Dhabi, we are hopefully fighting for a world championship.
Source: Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
