Lewis Hamilton Demands
Lewis Hamilton Demands
We’ve all probably seen by now Toto Wolff’s last remarks in the final episode of Netflix’s latest rendition of their “Drive To Survive” series where Toto had stated that every team on the grid had a target on their backs once the 2022 season, implying that the Silver Arrows team will be all business from the get-go and that they plan on taking back the Formula 1 title.
But now that we’re halfway through the season, it is now a fact that Mercedes and their drivers are out of title contention for both championships and that the best they can fight for is a P2 finish in both the constructors’ championships.
So, how is the team gearing up for the 2nd half of the season? Will they finally ditch their sidepodless design? What does Lewis Hamilton have to say about the team’s current development plan? Well, let’s talk about it then. But before we do, consider subscribing to the channel so that you don’t miss out on our latest uploads. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to it.
To say that Mercedes has been wrestling with the W13 all season long is an understatement, right from the very beginning of pre-season testing, many could see that the brilliant engineers at Mercedes have finally missed the mark after a long stretch of dominance over their competition. And many would point to their rather peculiar design as the main culprit to their struggles as the W13 still is the only car on the grid that is sporting a sidepodless design on their car.
But even with a questionable design on their car, the team has managed to keep themselves competitive in most races and to their credit, went into the summer shutdown after 6 consecutive podium appearances, including a back-to-back double top three result in both France and Hungary. Team boss Toto Wolff would give some insight as to how the team has been able to extract the maximum on each race weekend that comes by saying:
“We did and everybody was proud of the results. [It’s] the same thing every weekend, we try things. This is a database source but if you can’t rely on the data, because they don’t correlate from the virtual world, from the tunnel, CFD and simulations with what is happening in real-time on the track, you have just got to try things and find correlation… basically reverse engineer correlation.This is what we did and had positive results.”
While the team is proud of how they have been performing, it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that this way of developing the car isn’t sustainable and that a more predictable design would be better for the long term. And in a sport like Formula 1, copying the top dogs isn’t a new thing as we’ve seen Aston Martin and Williams copy Red Bull’s design.
While Haas has copied Ferrari’s. This leads to the next question, which of the 2 will Mercedes copy if and when they decide to ditch their current design? Well a few months back, Mercedes technical director Mike Elliot had said the team will be looking to develop other teams’ designs onto the W13, but recently Toto Wolff has come out that they have no intentions of copying anyone saying:
“We don’t have a preference for that, something that has directed us in a specific direction. In the end, it is a question of having the fastest car, we will never copy any opponent but we may have analysed some solutions present on the cars that we believe are the best. We ask ourselves questions, they are discussed and the answers must arrive by September”
And as of now, we’re only a week away from race weekend at Spa, and the team’s head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin that the best is yet to come for the team as he believes that the team isn’t too far away from catching up from the leaders saying:
“We are trying to bring some performance to Spa that will hopefully close that gap, we haven’t got far to go now. But we’ll keep developing the car for a little while now. We’re quite excited though, the last few races have been the most fun we’ve had all year and we are just hoping that we can take that extra step because we definitely want to be winning races in the near future, so we are working hard to try and achieve that.”
And as much as it has been a disappointing season for Mercedes, it’s been more of a disappointment for Lewis who had vengeance in his mind coming into the 2022 season after how the season finale went last season in Abu Dhabi. But as everyone can agree that this season’s champion is pretty much decided, Lewis is still proud of the team for what they have accomplished and the progress that they have shown compared to how they started the season.
But, Lewis would have a caveat at the end of his statement, saying that the team should be humble enough and pursue a different development plan for the car if they wish to be competitive next season. In Lewis’s words:
“We are still lacking performance, that’s what’s difficult. I think this car has potential, but we had to reduce the power to prevent bouncing. We have very good reliability, but we can’t depend on reliability forever to be on the podium, we really need performance. I really think there’s the potential to win races, and I hope every weekend, every week, that they find something that gives us a little bit more aero support without the hassle. It’s a hard thing for the team to do, but nobody gives up. We have to admit that the others have done a better job; their philosophy, whatever it is, is working well. We have to be aware of that and move on. We can’t be stubborn and say “no, the way we do things has to be right and it will work out”, because we could wait for years! We have to be quick, concise, humble in our approach. I think we will be. The conversations behind the scenes… You know how the engineers are, there’s a lot of pride in everybody’s work, and that’s legitimate. I really hope we can get a win this year, I really believe in it. But a win is not enough for us, that’s not what we work for. Hopefully we will be in a good position for next year. At the moment, when I talk to the team, I tell them what I don’t want and what I need next year on this car. I’m trying to show them the way to make sure they deliver that next year.”
Speaking of next year, as we’ve all heard by now the FIA has decided to step in to put into play a number of regulations that they believe are in the best interest of the drivers. This is after lengthy debates between the FIA and the team bosses who jockeyed their way into influencing the FIA’s decision. And as always Toto Wolff would come out on top which resulted in every F1 team boss and every fan saying that Toto and Mercedes have too much control over the FIA. Toto would reply to these frustrations from team bosses and fans by saying:
“When you put pressure on the FIA there is always a potential advantage, in everything, and we have done that in the past. But on this issue, I see it very differently, on several occasions there has been no hesitation in making changes to the regulations for safety reasons. I could also add that today we have understood the porpoising problems of our car, we got the pole position in the last race, but that doesn’t change anything. It is irrelevant, we are talking about something that damages the health of the drivers, from the outside we cannot understand what it means to be subjected to those particular stresses. I strongly believe that countermeasures must be taken to be sure that next year this problem will be a distant memory”
And as always, what is a Toto Wolff statement without Red Bull’s team boss Christian Horner arguing back. Since the FIA’s decision to step in, Horner has been the most vocal one in countering Toto and the FIA saying that the new regulations were “overtly biased” in favor of Mercedes. In Horner’s words:
“It seems very unfair, under a set of regulations, to say that just because they’ve got it wrong, everybody else has to change. There’s an inherent cost with that, which, under a budget cap, is very tricky to accommodate.”
And there you have it guys, so what do you think? How would you rate Mercedes’s season so far? Should the team revise their design concept for next season? Let us know in the comment section below, and as always don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t!
