© Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Mercedes’ Chief Technical Officer Mike Elliott says “over the winter we looked at various different concepts of bodywork and didn’t find a solution that was better than the one we had”.
Much has been said about Mercedes’ ‘zero sidepods’ concept, introduced at the beginning of 2022, with most observers agreeing it was a failure.
The team still decided to keep it in 2023, but after a poor performance at the first race of the season in Bahrain, they announced they will be going in a different development direction.
This culminated with Mercedes’ first big upgrade of 2023, which was introduced in Monaco. One of the most noticeable features of the upgraded W14, was the introduction of more conventional sidepods.
The team’s Chief Technical Officer Mike Elliott now explains why they decided to stick with the original concept at the beginning of 2023.
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“Over the winter we looked at various different concepts of bodywork and didn’t find a solution that was better than the one we had,” Elliott said.
“I think with what we’ve done now, we’ve clearly not jumped completely to where they are or to where anybody else is. What we’ve tried to do is to take what we’ve got and adapt it.
“Therefore, you don’t sort of take the same hit. And hopefully with time it evolves and we’ll end up in a better place.
“I think when we brought the first version, it was pretty much a level change. It wasn’t something that brought lots of extra performance but there were opportunities to look at something different. We’ve sort of moved forward.
“We’re always evolving, constantly trying to bring more performance. So, this is a little bit more. The next version will bring us a little bit more and hopefully we’ll keep developing over the winter.”
Ultimately the Monaco upgrade really did help Mercedes improve the W14’s performance.
“You question everything. “You question whether you have got the right fundamental philosophies, you question whether you’ve got the right processes in the way you’re looking at the data.
“You’d like to think there’s some silver bullet you could find or something that’s wrong that you can fix. But I think, generally speaking, it’s all about hard work.
“If you look at where we were last year, with a car and the issues that we faced, we took quite a few big steps backwards to get ourselves out of some of the positions we were in. Then, once you’re there, it is just catch up.
“I think if you look at where we are performance-wise, I think Aston made a good step over the winter but we’ve got ourselves into a decent position. Unfortunately, we’ve seen McLaren also make a big step.
“I think you have to sort of look at that and say, on the one hand, it’s disappointing for us, but on the other hand, it shows us there are opportunities to make good steps,” Elliott concluded.
