Mercedes Meeting On Future Of W14 Revealed By George Russell Who Highlights "Risks"
It looks like Mercedes, the 8-time Constructor champion, has hit a speed bump in the ground-effect era. After a lacklustre performance in the season opener in Bahrain, the team has admitted to not making the progress it anticipated with the new W14. And now, unsurprisingly, needs to reassess its plans.
An important meeting was held on the Tuesday after the Bahrain race, with senior management, drivers, and engineering staff, in attendance. The objective? To address the team's situation and figure out what steps were needed for the short, medium, and long term of the Brackley team.
The meeting delivered an honest assessment of the situation, as the team worked out what changes were required to deliver them victory. Driver George Russell explained the situation:
“We all came together and had some very good, honest, open conversations,” he told the press. “A lot of the questions were answered as to how we got ourselves in this position in the first place.
“Plus, what are we going to do in short term, and medium term, to get out of it? What path do we want to be on?
“Those changes are already in place, of getting on the track that we believe is going to bring us back to victory.”
However, Russell expressed confidence in the team's ability to make a comeback, saying:
“We know a change of concept doesn't come without risks,” he added.
“But I think we all feel like we've got enough knowledge and information now to say that we weren't on the right tracks, and the targets that we set over the winter weren't the right ones.
“We need to change lanes as soon as possible. Those decisions have already been made.
"And we've already started working towards them, as of probably Tuesday last week.
“How quickly that can be brought to the car, how quickly that's going to translate into performance is another question.”
Russell also suggested that Mercedes may have been sucked into committing to its zero-pod concept thanks to the team's victory at last year's Brazilian Grand Prix. This may have given the Brackley squad misplaced trust in the design.
While Mercedes hasn't yet revealed the specifics of their plans. "How quickly that can be brought to the car, how quickly that's going to translate into performance is another question," Russell ends.