Mercedes is clearly looking for redemption in the upcoming 2023 season after a horrible last one. The problem in the 2022 season was the W13 car. The engineering team could not bring the car’s unique abilities to light. The drivers felt a lot of difficulties due to “heavy bouncing.” Many of them suffered from back and neck pain. Later on, the engineers found out the problem was in porpoising. Nonetheless, these technical issues anyway caused them the previous season.
Too many rumors suggested that the team would give up on their “zeropod” design after the eight-times champions dropped to third place after last season. The Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff, has finally shined some light on the matter. According to him, the team has figured out exactly what they need to do to overcome the challenges of the technology of the new W14 cars. He added that they would not give up on their radical design.
The Brackley-based team may think that the problem was not in the design but somewhere else. The Mercedes boss mentioned, “we needed to figure out the problem and our shortcomings and make the corrections accordingly. We are just trying to present a car that addresses those issues exactly.” He reckoned that they would only know for sure if they have successfully made the necessary changes to bring out the car’s true potential once they get it on the ground.
Toto Wolff’s Positive View On The Upcoming Season
Looks like the Mercedes boss is positive with pre-season testing dates approaching and feels that the team will be able to get the desired result out of the car’s new design. The launch date of the Mercedes W14 is on February 15, 2023. And eight days later, the pre-season test, comprised of three days, is supposed to start in Bahrain. Even then, the Mercedes boss is aware of the presence of big room for improvement if the Silver Arrows would like to give a good fight to the Red Bull and Ferrari teams.
Taking a hint from last season’s race in Abu Dhabi, Mr. Wolff believes they may start the race far away from their rivals again. He mentioned, “we would like to be placed at the front in the race, but everything depends on how we perform.” The Mercedes boss added, “All said and done, and I just hope that our development process can start to give out fruitful results in the coming months.”
Toto Wolff Taking Precautions To Preserve Mercedes’ Energy Throughout The Year
The Mercedes boss has devised a “regeneration plan” for the team. It will help to survive throughout the 24 races scheduled for the year. The Team Principal shed some light on what he has been planning. He said, “some of us can survive the hectic schedule for the 24 races. But most of the members in the engineering team and the marketing people will suffer from exhaustion.
The reason being the tight traveling timeline. Hence there is a need for a kind of ‘rotation plan’.” Talking from experience, the Mercedes boss took two breaks from the Japan and Brazil Grand Prix last year. It helped him save energy for the rest of the year.