by VALERIO BARRETTA
Mercedes, Wolff returns to the zero sidepod philosophy
There Mercedes during 2023 it definitively turned the page, renouncing the initial ideas on the zero sidepod car philosophy, which distinguished it so much at the beginning of the ground effect era. Unfortunately, it took Brackley a year and a half to understand how that concept failed. The gravity of the situation, for team principal Toto Wolffwas given not by the lack of performance, but by the absence of explanations.
Wolff's words
The Austrian returned to the period from 2022 to the 2023 Monaco GP, the first important change of direction towards a concept more oriented towards the winning one of Red Bull: “It didn't go as we expected. The scenario we had in mind was: 'It will be difficult to win the championship, we are winning races, but we know where we lack performance'. And suddenly that wasn't the case“, these are his words ad Autosport.
“We set off with euphoria in 2022, because we were thrilled that we chose a wacky car layout. But suddenly we found ourselves in a situation where not only were the results not coming, and the smartest people didn't understand where they went wrong“, he continued. “We got the physics wrong. It's a ground effect car. Our tools did not work as well as with all other previous technical regulations. We had to recognize that all the data we had previously relied on was not related to what the car was doing on the track. We are now finalizing everything that can potentially be changed to eliminate these defects“.
The turning point of 2023
Exasperated by the lack of performance and above all of explanations on the performance of the car, Wolff first reappointed and then ousted the former technical director Mike Elliott, calling in his place James Allison, who with the W15 will attempt to at least partially fill the deficit that separates Mercedes from Red Bull.
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