Heading into the 2023 season, Mercedes had a big decision to make with regards to their car design as they attempted to return to winning ways.
The team needed to decide whether they would completely change their concept to match the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari or whether they would stick with their zero sidepod approach.
The Silver Arrows decided to stick with their 2022 design, believing that minor changes and tweaks would see them become title challengers once again this season.
Unfortunately for Mercedes, this has not been the case, as their concept has been proved to be ineffective already this year.
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Not only are the Silver Arrows significantly far away from Red Bull and Ferrari, they are slower than Aston Martin, a team who use their power units but have adopted Red Bull’s design.
P5 and P7 finishes in Bahrain for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell prompted team principal Toto Wolff to admit that his team have made a mistake with their concept already this season and trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has claimed that there will be major changes to the W14 in the near future.
“People have tended to use the word ‘concept’ when they mean the sidepod design, and Toto has said recently that we are looking at a revision that is going to come along in the next few races anyway,” he told Formula1.com.
“Given the gap to the front, of course we are going to look at bigger departures and more radical changes, but those changes take time to turn into a faster solution in the wind tunnel – you can’t do them overnight.
“There is quite a lot of development that you’ve got to do around any sort of big change in geometry in that area.
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“Of course, we are looking at where we can improve the car, we are looking for potential to develop and you will see visible changes coming on the car over the next few races.”
It has been reported that former technical director James Allison has returned to the team to oversee the next batch of upgrades, with current technical director Mike Elliott under pressure from the fans.
With major upgrades not expected until the race at Imola, Mercedes will be hoping that the racetrack in Jeddah this weekend suits their car a little better that in Bahrain.