“As I said before, Monaco is certainly not the ideal place to evaluate updates or changes to the car,” says Mercedes driver George Russell. Nevertheless, the question about the innovations is the most frequently asked after Friday practice in Formula 1 for the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff answers “Sky” like this: “At least the update is not much worse than the car was before. That’s a good thing for Monaco.”
Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time Formula 1 world champion, says his W14 Mercedes feels “overall good” with the new parts. The changes to the car were “noticeable”.
What Mercedes has changed on the W14
In which area the star brand has specifically increased, “I would like to [aber] Say nothing,” Hamilton continued. Just so much: “Hopefully we now have a platform to build on.”
And this platform differs dramatically from the previous expansion stage of the Mercedes racing car. Or as Wolff puts it: “The entire bodywork is different, as well as the front axle and the underbody.”
But first things first: Mercedes has raised the upper wishbones on the front wheel suspension and also changed their shape. “This improves the inflow of air onto the side box and thus also the vehicle’s cooling capacity,” explains the team.
At the front edge of the underbody, Mercedes has changed the angle of attack of the air deflectors in order to direct the air even more precisely under the car and generate more downforce at the rear of the vehicle.
But the most striking thing is the new shape of the side pods, because the “zero pod” concept has been abandoned in favor of a conventional solution. From the high and wide air intake and the new waist in the side box, Mercedes expects “an improved air flow to the edge of the underbody”, which should promote underbody performance and also optimize the air flow to the rear.
The latter is also the purpose of the sweeping bonnet that the team presented in Monaco. However, the cover should also provide more downforce. More downforce is also the keyword for the modified rear wing with a larger angle of attack and for the additional cascade winglets on the rear axle of the vehicle.
Russell not fully there in Friday practice
For all these innovations, Wolff attests “great work” to “everyone involved in Brackley” and Hamilton says “thank you” to the colleagues at the plant. Reason: “Everyone has put in so many hours of hard work so that we [mit dem Update] can compete here. Glad we kept it on track.”
That was not a matter of course: Russell in particular complained loudly on the radio about a lack of trust in the vehicle during Friday practice, and on top of that violated the speed limit by 0.2 km/h in the pit lane (cost: 100 euros).
Why wasn’t he doing as well as Hamilton? “The car was so poisonous on the rear axle,” says Wolff. “George said I can’t move it to the limit, otherwise I’ll put it in the crash barrier.”
Different votes for the Mercedes drivers
Which is probably partly due to a different set-up compared to Hamilton in the sister car, as Wolff adds: “We drove different set-ups, but now we have at least one direction that will work for George.”
The results at least show a positive trend: In the second practice session, Russell was exactly 0.233 seconds behind Hamilton, who was sixth, in P12. In practice one, Hamilton was third and Russell just P15, with the Mercedes drivers a second apart.
But it remains a deficit on Russell’s side. In a direct comparison, he loses time on Hamilton, especially in the very narrow parts of the track, specifically in the hairpin bend, the harbor chicane and again in the area immediately before the start and finish. However, Russell manages to partially, if not entirely, make up the deficit on the following straights.
How Russell wants to turn things around by Saturday
“I think George needs a few laps to really get going. It was the same in Baku,” says team boss Wolff. He adds: “It’s important that he improves. He’s in full swing in qualifying. I’m not worried about that.”
And Russell knows his homework: “Now we have to see what we can get out of the tires. The basic performance of the vehicle is good.”
Hamilton, however, wants to have “clearly recognized” “where the performance is missing in my case,” he says. “That’s a topic for our debriefing. We’ll exchange ideas and see what we can do with the resources available.”
Wolff: No chance against Red Bull in Monaco, but…
Wolff believes it won’t be enough against Red Bull: “Max [Verstappen] was in his own league on the long run. You can see: he has the power in the car and no tire wear. But it was very tight for one lap on Friday.” He therefore had the impression that “it’s going in the right direction” for Mercedes.
Russell points out that he “definitely improved” by the second training session. “But we have to think about something overnight. Because qualifying is the most important thing this weekend and qualifying is the unit where we have the biggest difficulties,” he says. “We’re always better positioned on Sundays. The past year and a half has shown that.”
According to Russell, Mercedes’ mission in Monaco is obvious: “turn around” the current trend and shine on Saturday. But that won’t be easy, because Saturday’s form isn’t a question of driving deficits, “but something inherent in the car,” says Russell. His conclusion: “Saturday will probably not be easy for us.”
Mercedes hadn’t cranked their engines to full power yet
But Wolff sounds confident when he says: “We had [im Freien Training] not cranked the engine yet. There might be a little more. I think in the end everything will happen within two or three tenths.”
That can be positive or negative for Mercedes, as Russell adds: “We’ve seen a couple of times this year that a McLaren, an Alpine or even a Haas land in front of us on Saturday but disappear into nowhere on Sunday. Can they do it Also this time, they are likely to be a problem for us on Sunday.”
“That’s why we have to work on our qualifying pace and put the car to the test next week,” says Russell. Especially since Mercedes is missing half a second to the top.
That’s why Hamilton is skeptical about being up front in Monaco: “I don’t think we have half a second left, but we’ll see.” He had “generally an excellent day” at the start in Monaco and is looking forward to building on that.
Everything else, the final evaluation of the updates, will have to wait until after the weekend. Russell: “We’re almost putting our innovations aside for a bit and then we’ll do it next weekend [in Barcelona] thoughts about it.”