Mercedes Team In Despair As Technical Director Comes Under Fire In Emergency Meetings

Long meetings are being held back in Brackley.

Mercedes had a disappointing start to the 2023 season having a lack of performance in comparison to Red Bull, Ferrari, and Aston Martin. As a result, technical director Mike Elliot is coming under fire. 

The technical director has explained:

“We've done a lot of work over the past year to look at other types of solutions. But we keep coming back to this concept because it is the one that favours us the most. Is it the right long-term solution? We'll find out.”

The W14 was the fourth fastest car in Bahrain, even behind Aston Martin’s AMR23, which also outperformed Ferrari in terms of race pace. Toto Wolff's strong post-race comments gave an indication of how fraught how things are back in Brackley, saying, “it was one of the worst days since we've been racing in F1.”

Despite some progress in terms of rear stability and traction, the car still lacked aerodynamic load in medium-high and high-speed corners. The team's new medium-low downforce rear wing yielded some results, but there is still much to review in the shortest possible time. 

The conclusion reached by Toto Wolff is that the aerodynamic concept is intrinsically wrong. Mike Elliott's technical department studied the "zero-sidepod" car, but changes are now on the way after the first aerodynamic objectives were unsuccessfully met.

Although the W14 has made some improvements over the previous year, the team still has a long way to go. Mercedes will need to make changes to the car and its overall concept to stay competitive. George Russell underlined the importance of the W14 being a better basis to work from than last year’s car, especially in solving the porpoising problems. However, the ultimate potential of the W14 in relation to Red Bull’s excessive power remains limited.

Improvements can be made in terms of setup, but the team is working on changing the car's philosophy with more conventional sidepods. The 'zero sidepod' concept failed to achieve the desired results. Mike Elliot confirmed that the team has a different bodywork in the works, which will be different from both the current one and those of other teams.

Trying to remain positive, Elliott explained:

“If you look at where we were last year, we had really big problems with porpoising. Over the winter, we have solved many, and we



went into testing feeling like we had a better package to work with.

“However, we believe we haven’t gotten the best out of the car. We’re still getting to know her.

“We have a different bodywork in the works, which will not be the same as that of the others, nor the one we have now. It will just be different.

“The new side-pods are part of the planned development on the W14. It takes time to bring it because we need to produce new parts, and we need to change some parts that are underneath the bodywork to be able to assemble it. It will debut we will bring as soon as possible.”

As tensions rise in the team, it has been reported that extensive meetings have been held back at base.