Dud ‘zero-sidepods’ ditched
After two months spent beavering away back in Brackley, Mercedes will finally put their new, radically revised W14 through its paces in practice in Monaco today. The team have warned fans not to expect too much straight away, but it seems a forlorn hope.
Pictures of the upgrades began appearing on social media as soon as they showed up in the paddock yesterday morning, with fans eagerly devouring the images.
As expected, Mercedes have ditched the “zero-sidepod” concept they debuted when new design regulations were introduced last season, and with which they controversially decided to persevere for the 2023 campaign.
As well as fuller sidepods, there are major changes
to the front suspension and to the floor.
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, warned this week there was no “silver
bullet” as they attempt to close the gap to Red Bull – Mercedes are already 128 points behind in the constructors’ championship
after just five races – and to expect a bedding-in period.
Both of his drivers repeated that note of
caution yesterday when speaking to the media.
George Russell stressed that Monaco was a “one-of-a-kind circuit” and said
Mercedes would not read too much into the performance of the updates this weekend.
The revised W14 was meant
to make its debut in Imola last week, only for deadly floods to hit the region and force the cancellation of that race.
“There are always outliers in teams who overperform around a track like Monaco and teams who underperform around Monaco,” Russell said.
“But, ultimately, we don’t design a car to be at its peak in Monaco. So, we just need to get through the weekend and take a review once we get to Barcelona [next week] and then go from there.”
Lewis
Hamilton, who, like Russell, has already tried out the new car in the simulator at Brackley, did say he was encouraged by what he was seeing.
“Last year, we were a little bit lost in terms of how to fix the issue,” the seven-time world champion said. “Now I feel the team know exactly where to go and how to get there.”