Mercedes is really working hard enough in order to build a highly anticipated W14 car. As Toto Wolff has promised his drivers that a better car will be given to them for the 2023 Formula One championship, he needed to hail Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains. Wolff wants to push the power unit and chassis team to adjust to new ground floor rules introduced in 2022 for the first time.
Mercedes, for the first time in eight years, lost the constructor’s championship to Red Bull. It definitely meant that Red Bull did a great job in swapping the floor from 13 to 18 inches wheels. The team mastered adjusting to the new rules and finally got rid of the turbo hybrid problems. In the grid of 2022, RB18 was the strongest car with no issues rather than being overweight, which was mended within the starting four races only. On the other hand, Mercedes, who could not forget about the turbo hybrid era, could only make a bouncy car that gave a lot of porpoising issues.
For Mercedes adopting new rules is now a matter of pride. As of 2026, new powertrains are debuting. And Mercedes, too, needs to change with the generation. In the meantime, these developments are frozen. Toto Wolff claimed that it has become very important for the team to fine-tune the power unit as every driver has a different way of interacting with the powertrains.
In The Second Half Of The 2022 Season, Mercedes At Least Gained Something! Experiences It Is
After the disastrous season ended, Mercedes’s boss, along with the engine chief Hywel Thomas gave a review of the season. He admitted that the year was all about learning, going through progress, and finding the cornerstones. Toto Wolff said, “honestly, the team has been able to just progress throughout the year. This has been a really important cornerstone in the altogether working of the team.”
Chief Toto Wolff believes that the team had to undergo a lot of pressure in order to support the chassis with the very obvious behavior of the car. Even though the Silver Arrows just continued delivering the duty and pushed the car’s performance up.
Whatever happened in the 2022 season was very disappointing for Mercedes. But, the way they progressed from day first to last is worth enjoying. From Bahrain to Japan, the team suffered and learned and analyzed. But in the United States, they finally brought the upgrade. This ultimately paved the way for the great one-two victory of the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The second half of the season went more in progress and developments. This helped the team collect data important to keep in mind before making the W14. According to Hywel Thomas, the only clear thing at present is that Mercedes have gone through the link between the power unit and the chassis, and one can develop them separately now.
With the constant failures, Mercedes has figured out that the performance of the non-hardware in the PU is all about matching the PU to the chassis.
