Mercedes prepares the turning point
The start of the 2023 season reserved a nasty surprise for Mercedes: the W14, the redemption car, proved to be a failure just like the W13. Except that unlike the “parent” his project will be thrown in the bin to make room at Imola for another much more adherent to the winning concept, proposed a year ago by Adrian Newey and Red Bull. A turning point, an admission of having collected a technical knockout, but also an opportunity to start again. This is in theory, then there is the need to make the new road work. Which for Lewis Hamilton it’s not obvious.
Back to sidepods, Hamilton skeptical
The seven-times world champion, fifth in Jeddah behind teammate George Russell, believes that the return to sidepods could even slow down the W14, and therefore have a counterproductive effect: “People keep talking about fitting the new sidepods to the machine, but it’s not that simple. If you put Red Bull sidepods on our car it will change literally nothingindeed the car could even go slower“, said the Mercedes driver to the microphones of his compatriots Sky Sports UK. “It’s all about aerodynamics, how balanced the car is when cornering. There are so many different elements that people obviously don’t know about, because they don’t have much experience in aerodynamics and can’t see certain problems: there’s so much more“.
“I told you so”
That “I told you” of Istanbul, in 2021, when Hamilton reproached Mercedes with a wrong strategic choice, he has returned in recent weeks. In fact, the Briton accused the team of ignoring his concerns about the car, and although he regretted the words used, he once again stressed that the team should have listened to him: “I’m one of those people who likes to always be right. I didn’t always have it, but in this case I was right. It was like saying, ‘I told you so’. This is a team effort. At the end of the day I’m the driver, not the designer, but I’m a key to the performance of the car, we’re working to trust each other continuously. They listen to me, the results we’ve had over time prove it. We have had some disagreements and that is inevitable in relationships. The important thing is to admit that you were wrong and then come together as a team to fix it“.
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