George Russell says Mercedes are already sure some of the design changes on their new car will make it quicker in a straight line and against the stopwatch than its predecessor.
But he admitted they can’t be sure they won’t get caught out by another “curveball”, as happened last year when they encountered severe porpoising which badly compromised their car’s performance.“There are definitely improvements that we are sure are going to make the car faster,” he told media including RaceFans yesterday. “The car is going to be lighter than what we saw last year, that is definite lap time [gain], we know that.”
Mercedes has reverted to a black livery for the upcoming season, allowing it to leave more areas of its car unpainted, reducing weight. Last year it resorted to reducing the extent of the paintwork on its car after it was launched.
Russell said another of the W13’s shortcomings has been addressed. “We’ve worked really well and hard on reducing the drag because we saw how much we were losing to Red Bull, particularly last year, and we believe we’ve achieved that,” he said.
“So we should be faster in the straight line as well. And these are things that we know are sort of guaranteed performance.”
However the biggest constraint on the car’s performance is likely to be how much downforce it generates, which was compromised last year by the porpoising they encountered. Russell said it may take a while before the team can be sure they’ve addressed that problem.
“As soon as you brake for a corner, you go through the corner and the downforce needs to start working. We truly don’t know how it’s going to perform and ultimately we don’t know how it’s going to tally up compared to mainly Red Bull and Ferrari.”
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He is confident Mercedes has done the best job it could during the off-season to address its problems with last year’s car.
“I’m confident that we have done the most we possibly can with the information we learned from last year. I fully trust in my team and the way everybody’s working. I think we feel like we have done everything possible with what we know.
“But as we learned last year, there’s sometimes curveballs. And in life you only learn with these experiences. Are we going to get another curveball thrown at us? Who knows. We’re not sure.
“So I think you’ve got to do your talking on the track and ultimately we’re only really going to know once we’ve done that first test, probably not even then.”
Russell pointed out the team has a strong record of developing a car over the course of a season. Having struggled to reach Q1 at some races early last year, they took a victory in the penultimate round of the championship.
“We’ve seen in a number of seasons now with Mercedes just how well the team develops the car throughout the season. And I think fortunately with how the calendar has panned out, it gives the teams chances to develop without a huge number of races in a certain time span.”
Mercedes put the first laps on its W14 with Russell at the wheel at Silverstone yesterday in a short demonstration run. It is conducting a filming day with the car at the track today. Reports elsewhere the team encountered an engine problem yesterday are not correct, a spokesperson advised RaceFans.
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
16th February 2023, 12:51
“We done goofed, again.”
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
16th February 2023, 13:04
Seems to be a lot of PR style Team Speak in there.
The problem of course is that all the other teams will also have gained performance, so Merc needs to have improved even more than everyone else if they want to get back to total domination.
I just want a closer fight this season. I really do not care who wins, just so long as the races are genuine and unpredictable.
MacLeod (@macleod)
16th February 2023, 13:07
So Mercedes had a extra test already to know this… or is the same as last year where they said the same and were worthless untill they fixed the problem.
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
16th February 2023, 13:34
I didn’t realise it had got quite that bad.
Boomerang
16th February 2023, 13:51
It must be Q3 but Q1 sounds much better.
petebaldwin (@)
16th February 2023, 14:27
Of course they do. When you screw up as badly as they did last year, you should be bringing a car that has guaranteed performance gains. The question is how much those gains are worth because the other teams will be doing the same and some are starting from a stronger position.
Red Bull will already know that their car will perform well because they have a solid platform that they can work from. Mercedes are having to change major parts of their design and will be hoping that the changes work as intended and don’t negatively affect other existing parts of their design.
We all know what Mercedes is capable of so there’s every chance they could win some titles this year but I think they’d consider it an acceptable season if they finished a strong 2nd with the car working consistently across all tracks. They’d then have the solid platform that Red Bull currently have to build from and they could take the fight to Red Bull in 2024.
petebaldwin (@)
16th February 2023, 15:25
I wonder how they’ll go about pre-season testing this year. Generally, they go at 70% pace and rack up lap after lap after lap. I would have thought they’d have to push a bit harder this year to understand if the car is actually working at full pace.
Just something to bear in mind if Mercedes are at the top of the timing screens in pre-season…
amian
16th February 2023, 16:48
Hahh, it’s funny that they put tape on the tippy tip of the nose cone as well to close those tiny air inlets.
Boomerang
16th February 2023, 17:37
I hope of slingshot effect performance gain. Constrained by W13’s shortcomings released by W14 refinements.