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The German producer has been working arduous on a basically totally different automotive for 2024, with it clear that it didn’t hit the targets with its present W14 challenger.
Whereas such a dramatic change of course opens the chance of the group having to restart on all of the data it has gained over the previous two years, the group says it’s now satisfied that there isn’t any future for the present idea.
The apparent lack of tempo at Interlagos, the place Lewis Hamilton slid down the order from beginning third on the restart a 12 months on from the squad triumphing there, has highlighted that it might have been much more silly to stay with its present automotive.
Requested if the Brazil kind had dented confidence about its understanding of the present laws, group principal Wolff mentioned: “No, I believe extra confirmed that the steps that we did are vital. So at the very least we all know it confirms that the trajectory of adjusting basically is true.
“Final 12 months, we got here out of an Interlagos weekend, the place you are completely demolishing your competitors Saturday and Sunday, and that was like: are we doing the precise factor by persevering with with the chassis that we have now?
“Now it’s fairly clear. This feels horrible for the entire group. And I want we might begin the brand new season and focus on the brand new automotive.”
Photograph by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14, battles with Lando Norris, McLaren MCL60
The size of Mercedes’ confusion over what was occurring in Brazil was highlighted by the truth that the group thought-about pulling its vehicles out of parc ferme so it might change set-up to one thing that labored higher.
Nonetheless, Wolff mentioned that such a plan was dominated out as a result of the group didn’t know what it wanted to vary to make issues higher.
“We did not know basically the place we’d have modified it, as a result of there’s a a lot greater concern,” he mentioned. “We considered that [starting from the pitlane], however when interested by maximizing factors, it was in all probability proper to start out like this.”
Mercedes believes it has closed in on what went flawed with its present automotive this 12 months – because it has confessed to having been too conservative and too excessive with its focused ride-height aero platform, which has given away lots of efficiency.
Subsequent 12 months’s automotive will possible be set to run a lot nearer to the bottom, with the outfit being extra assured that it may possibly keep away from the porpoising issues that hung over its W13 automotive.
However Wolff mentioned he wouldn’t be taking something with no consideration about what Mercedes would ship subsequent 12 months.
“For 13 years I’ve by no means felt optimistic or assured,” he mentioned. “It is perhaps extra my downside and my mind: the glass is at all times half empty.
“However what we all know is that we’re altering the automotive fully and we’re an outlier in comparison with the final eight years, the place we have been within the entrance, strong, and with the construction and folks to carry out on the entrance.”
He added: “This automotive typically, the event of this automotive, is extra plasters that we placed on one thing that is not proper.”
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