Mercedes are aiming to repeat the restoration feat they achieved final yr by successful a race earlier than the top of the season.
The workforce went into 2023 with excessive hopes after turning their uncompetitive W13 right into a race-winner by the top of the 2022 season. George Russell scored the workforce’s solely victory within the penultimate spherical of the championship in Brazil.
Nevertheless Mercedes slipped again once more in the beginning of 2023 and selected a brand new improvement route for its W14 chassis. A serious improve was launched on the Monaco Grand Prix, and since then the workforce’s efficiency has improved.
“It’s very nice to be now racing at the very least for podiums, having the ability to present what we’re able to doing,” stated Mercedes’ chief technical officer Mike Elliott in a video released by the team.
“Hopefully we are able to flip that into extra upgrades, extra efficiency over the races to come back and hopefully begin preventing for some victories by the top of the season.”
Elliott expects the W14 will probably be extra at dwelling on the two upcoming tracks on the calendar: The Red Bull Ringwhich holds subsequent week’s Austrian Grand Prix and dash race, and Silverstone, the place the British Grand Prix will happen every week later.
“I feel the place we’ve seen the automobile struggling is extra the low-speed corners. So if we begin circuits that’ve received extra medium and high-speed content material, I feel we’ll do higher there.
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“So Silverstone can be instance of that. Austria shouldn’t be too unhealthy for us both, so let’s hope we go effectively in each of these.”
Lewis Hamilton accomplished the primary lap of final week’s Canadian Grand Prix in second place however fell to 3rd by the end. He pitted in the course of the Security Automotive interval and once more later within the race, and Elliott stated it’s unlikely the workforce would have achieved any higher had they used a special technique.
“A one-stop technique was in all probability the best technique for the circuit, however solely in a standard race,” he stated. “Because it was, we had a reasonably early Security Automotive with George’s incident.
“That meant the 2 methods of doing a one-stop would have been to pit below the Security Automotive after which run a really lengthy stint on the hards, and I feel we’d have seen far an excessive amount of degradation for that and we might have been weak to automobiles from behind later within the race.
“The opposite different can be to do what Ferrari did, which is to remain out below the Security Automotive after which pit later within the race, so working an extended first. For Ferrari that labored out as a result of they had been caught in a DRS prepare with slower automobiles in entrance of them they usually had been in a position to soar them after which use their inherent tempo within the race.
“For us, if we’d have stayed out, I feel we’d have simply been weak to the automobiles round us and we wouldn’t have ended up in a greater place total.”
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2023 F1 season
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Printed : 2023-06-21 17:22:55
