MERCEDES but it was as tricky as trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack , especially as changes often influenced and compromised other , hitherto functioning , areas .
While Red Bull and Ferrari were doing the winning , Lewis Hamilton and George Russell struggled all through until they scored a curious 1-2 in Brazil . Curious because , if it had seemed to be light at the end of the wind tunnel , it turned out to be the train that never arrived as far as progress was concerned . The 2023 W14 was a significant update on the design , with more favourable rear suspension mountings to facilitate the necessary compromise of running higher ride heights , but it failed even to reproduce the unloved W13 ’ s South American form . Meanwhile , although changes to the rules dropped Ferrari closer to Mercedes ’ pace by stipulating 15mm higher ride heights to try and obviate porpoising , Red Bull were virtually untouchable throughout 2023 , winning all but one of the 22 races and conferring a third title upon Max Verstappen .
By then the zero sidepod idea was a thing of the past . From Monaco , the W14 had similar sidepods to the Red Bull , the Ferrari and the very fast Aston Martin , and new front suspension , but Elliott admitted it had been a minefield deciding what bits to keep and what not to , amid great care not to inadvertently throw away what worked . Still there was no magic bullet , and the car was effectively a Mk2 version of W13 which sought to surrender some of the promised huge downforce in return for some which was more user friendly . Not even the return of the highly rated James Allison as technical director produced the desired results . For the first time since 2011 , Mercedes didn ’ t win at all .
Lewis more often than George opted to run experimental set-ups as they sought the elusive sweet spot . And in the
“ it had seemed to be light at the end of the wind tunnel …” end Mercedes were too conservative – ironically until a revised floor and front wing enabled Lewis to run at the front and to finish second in the US race in Texas . At least until he was dropped back following a penalty for a ride-height infringement . That wasn ’ t the only irony ; the lap time benefits post-Monaco 2023 had nothing to do with the deletion of the zero sidepods , and another adventurous team may yet find a way to exploit them .
Both drivers agreed that the behaviour on turn-in with the car had been horrible , and that remained a problem even with the W15 in 2024 . Many times it proved to be a ‘ diva ’ to set-up , with the balance being very inconsistent . In some corners the drivers fight understeer , in others oversteer . As these words were written just after the Canadian race there were signs of genuine promise as all the hard yards of work paid off . Lewis was very fast all weekend and George took the first pole since Hungary 2022 . At last they had a race car they could really push hard , and they set the two fastest laps in a race that , with slightly better fortune , either might just have won .
But have Mercedes ’ problems been purely of a technical – and arguably mainly aerodynamic – nature ? Certainly , they appear to have been the factor that prompted Lewis to decide it was time to jump ship for Ferrari in 2025 , even before he had tried the W15 in the simulator . But is the absence of Niki Lauda with his famed pragmatism something that has crucially been missing since 2019 , as Mathias Lauda agreed over the Canadian weekend ? Or has the budget cap bitten the biggest players when it comes to developing their way out of trouble as they so often did in the past ? One leading team principal said recently his development budget has dropped from $ 40m to just $ 8m …
Between 2014 and 2021 Mercedes won 111 Grands Prix ; from then until now they have won two , including Austria last weekend . Given the massive technical effort invested over the past two and a half seasons , that is obviously a poor return . But at last there have been signs of a Mercedes recovery . F1 ® never was easy … •
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