by VALERIO BARRETTA
Mercedes, two years wasted
The introduction of the latest regulations in Formula 1 has reintroduced ground effect to single-seaters: to make the most of it, the teams have thought of different car concepts, a dynamic that occurs regularly at the start of each cycle.
Mercedes was, as is known, the team that adopted the most extreme approach, with that zero pod philosophy that characterized it and, unfortunately for Lewis Hamilton and his teammates, condemned it to purgatory: only in the last months of 2023 at Brackley did they see the light.
Horner's words
Red Bull, meanwhile, dominated the championship. Team principal Chris Horner he admitted that he wondered why Mercedes persisted in such a mistake: “I think the surprise was that Ferrari had a very good car last year. Due to the natural evolution of that concept, it made us think that this year it would be a very tough competitor. We were very surprised that Mercedes stuck with concepts that had clearly failed last year“, this is his comment ad Autosport.
The purgatory to which Mercedes condemned itself at the beginning of 2022 could have been “only” for one year, but paradoxically the double at Interlagos, topped off by the victory in the Sprint, ended up deceiving the team, which at that point was convinced it was on the right path . Team principal Toto Wolff therefore approved the zero pod philosophy also for the 2023 car, the W14, but in the spring he had to accept reality, later dismissing technical director Mike Elliott and promoting James Allison.
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