Mercedes are hopeful of extracting the "goodness" from their flawed 2022 Formula 1 car as they unveiled the striking W14. After eight-straight championship titles, the team's winning run ended last season with a slump to third place and just a single win in the hands of George Russell. The concept of the W13 itself had a fundamental design error which was not picked up until late on in the campaign. However, despite the troubled car, Mercedes are optimistic that some of the "goodness" from it will be baked into the W14 - which has reverted to an all-black livery.
Mercedes hope for goodness
"From the outside, after eight years of winning back-to-back World Championships, and then having a poor year, many might expect that we would be tearing up the drawings and starting again, but that is not the case," explained Technical Director Mike Elliott. "We believe there was a lot of goodness in the W13, along with some things that we didn't like. For the W14, it's about taking that goodness and carrying it forward, and correcting the issues that we had in the W13. "From that point, it's about making as much progress as quickly as we can because that's where the real gains come from in Formula 1. "[They] come from learning and then turning that into performance."
Budget cap one reason Mercedes couldn't recover
In previous eras, Mercedes would have bene able to spend as much money as required to solve the W13 in-season, but under the cost cap regulations, this was not possible. It meant the team knew what fixes were needed to the W13, but they could not do so without breaking the cap, but also that the W14 would be the beneficiary. "Last year, once we had figured out what we needed to do, it took a huge amount of work to get ourselves moving forward," added Elliott. "Towards the end of the season, you could see the performance improving and the winter has been a reset. "We have done all the things that we wanted to do with the W13 last year but couldn't because of resource constraints or our focus was elsewhere fixing other issues. "Midway through last year we understood what the problems were with the car. "It wasn't a specific part or concept, more the overall direction we were going in. "If you attempt to change direction too quickly, you can end up going too far the other way, so what we needed to do was take a step and then use that to prove the direction. "The consequence is that it takes quite a long time to see the benefit, and we sae positive progress towards the end of last season. "Hopefully, we will continue on that path, and building those learnings into the new car will bring dividends."
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