‘Not good enough’ Mercedes ‘working very hard’ to reach a better place

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin admitted that the team needs to embark on a steep improvement curve in terms of performance.

It is no surprise that the Silver Arrows are on a downhill trajectory after the new F1 regulations were imposed in 2022. Almost everyone on the team has accepted that they need to improve a lot more.

According to F1.com, Shovlin explained that Mercedes are working extremely hard to find out where they went wrong in their concept and how they can bridge the gap to the front. He said:

“Clearly, we’ve got something that’s not in the right place that we need to work on, but ultimately the other thing is that performance gap to the front. The raw pace of the car is not good enough. We are working very hard at the moment to understand what we can do in the short-term future and in the mid-term future to try and get ourselves in a better place.”

Furthermore, Shovlin revealed that there will be some visible changes coming to the W14 in the next few races that could improve their performance. He recalled how Mercedes cars were miles behind others during the 2023 F1 Bahrain GP qualifying session, and how that gap was even bigger in the main race. Shovlin added:

“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. Ultimately, we’ve got a lot of work to do. That gap in [Bahrain GP] qualifying was quite large; we were over half a second to the front. In the race that was even bigger."

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Toto Wolff does not believe that cost cap will limit Mercedes' progress

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff does not think that the cost cap will limit his team's performance and development. Though the Brackley-based team has struggled quite a lot over the past couple of years, Wolff believes that the team simply needs to use its resources more efficiently to stay under budget.

Speaking to on-site media, including Sportskeeda, he said:

“Extremely difficult to catch such an advantage but it’s what we need to do. I mean we have no choice. I’m not sure the budget cap gives you constraints and the position we are, we just need to decide where we are going and put all the resources behind it. You are still developing one car. The question is only which car.”

After the Bahrain GP, Wolff, Lewis Hamilton, and George Russell have all admitted that they need to go back to the drawing board and make massive changes to the W14.