Mercedes will wind down the development work on their current car soon, team principal Toto Wolff has confirmed, as they prepare to focus efforts on their 2024 design.
He said the team was disappointed by the performance of the W14 at Silverstone, a track where Mercedes have previously performed well. He likened the car to their 2017 design, the W08, which the team branded a ‘diva’ due to its fluctuating performances.
The team expected to produce one of its strongest showings of the year at the British Grand Prix, but finished third and fifth in the race. Wolff said this shows the W14 still isn’t performing in line with expectations and a change of design direction for the next car needs to be considered in order to fight Red Bull and Max Verstappen for titles.
“I thought at Silverstone, based on our historic performance, was the best shot but it wasn’t,” Wolff told media including RaceFans. “So maybe there’s another track where we have the best shot, because the characteristics of the car have changed.
“I always believe that we can beat Max with a good group of people, best drivers, we just have to give them a car that is more predictable and not the ‘Diva 2.0’. And much more complicated than the first one.”
Mercedes introduced a significant change to the aerodynamic configuration of the W14 at the Monaco Grand Prix, and added a new front wing at Silverstone. However Lewis Hamilton said the latest upgrade proved a “disappointment” and Wolff confirmed the car “remains to be a handful” for its drivers.
“I think overall the car was not where we’ve seen it in Silverstone the last years,” he said. “That was the track that we were really dominant and strong, and the high speed was not good at all compared to our direct competitors and qualifying we were struggling also on traction on the exits.”
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Mercedes will divert efforts to next year’s car “pretty soon”, said Wolff, who isn’t concerned about holding onto their current second place in the constructors championship despite that influencing their future ATR limit.
“We have no choice. P2, P3, fundamentally it doesn’t impact me and the team. It’s about coming back and being able to win a world championship in that respect. That’s not going to happen this year so we need to set our eyes onto next year and then see all the races to come to learn, develop and make sure that we can carry that forward into next year.
“But having said that, the regulations are the same so you’re not learning nothing by continuing this car. So it’s a balance that we need to strike right.”
Mercedes’ power unit customer McLaren produced their best result of the season so far at Silverstone having introduced a major upgrade package featuring a similar sidepod layout to that used by Red Bull. The team’s cars finished second and fourth, each ahead of a Mercedes.
Wolff said it had become increasingly clear that teams’ designs were converging on the solution produced by Red Bull, who scored their 11th consecutive gran prix win yesterday.
“The sidepods and the bodywork are just one part of the chassis. Clearly it looks like very interesting solutions that it opens up but most of the performance comes through the floor and diffuser and we haven’t seen how they interpreted the regulations and how they’ve done it.
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“So in my opinion, it’s just the package. We see that the strong cars all look a little bit the same when you look from the side and from top-down. And certainly that has played in our minds already back in the day. But maybe that’s just a little more indication where it goes.”
Mercedes evaluated Red Bull’s sidepod design previously, said Wolff, but decided it was not possible to adapt its current car to a similar layout. He indicated they will consider it again for their 2024 car.
“We had the sidepod concept and the bodywork in the tunnel very early on already to see which avenues it would open up and how much it would add to performance. And the relative loss of the downforce, the way we measure it, was substantial.
“So it’s not something that we wanted to follow up on in the year. We changed our design direction, I think we have a great group of aerodynamics led by James [Allison] and I’m sure that it will be a consideration seeing the step they made.”
Wolff indicated the team will not bring any more major changes to the W14. “Do we believe that we have upgrades in there that are going to fundamentally change the car? I don’t believe so, but we have a few small steps that are to come.”
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