F1 presenter's first impression of the Mercedes upgrades: "ungainly, ugly"

David Croft wasn't impressed by the appearance of Mercedes' new upgrades that the team brought out at the Monaco Grand Prix, with a new and completely modified design of the side pod. The team has given up on their concept of the 'zero pods.'

Mercedes had been working on designing new upgrades for the cars since the poor start in Bahrain. After the Bahrain GP, Toto Wolff admitted that they needed a change in design philosophy of the car after one of Mercedes' "worst days in racing."

However, F1 presenter David Croft isn't a huge fan of the aesthetics of the new design.

"Mercedes looks real, ungainly, ugly. Martin described it as a Frankenstein's monster sort of car. It does it looks like it's taken like an inspiration from the inside of a steel drum and needs a good panel beater."

The team was set to introduce these upgrades at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, but because of the catastrophic conditions in Imola, the race was cancelled. While some teams postponed their updates to the Spanish GP, the Silver Arrows didn't want to wait for another weekend to go by.

Any change in performance was hard to judge in the streets of Monaco because of the nature of the track. However, better data will be collected for analysis as F1 heads to Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix.

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David Croft feels Mercedes 'hurried' with their development

Since the beginning of the 2023 season, Mercedes had mentioned that they were working on updates, which were finally introduced in Monaco.

However, David Croft feels that since it was necessary for the team to start with the development, they might have done it in a hurry, which led to the unappealing design. He said:

"They've got to start somewhere and they've started somewhere different in a hurry or more of a hurry than they would have wanted. This is the journey."

Croft added that he is not expecting the Silver Arrows to engage in a head-on battle with Aston Martin during the Spanish Grand Prix. However, he does expect them to have a hint of improvement in the overall performance of the car.