The Mercedes F1 team has been waiting for the new upgrades since the opening Grand Prix in Bahrain ended. The team and the drivers altogether have been suffering since last year. After the introduction of the cost cap rule in late 2021, the Silver Arrows came up with the concept of zero side-pods. Needless to say, this concept was a disaster.
In 2022 the team suffered from porpoising issues causing tremendous bouncing. They managed to win a single race in Brazil, which led them to believe that concept was a good idea. As a result, they stuck to the same concept at the start of the current season and fell behind again. But the Silver Arrows need to reduce the gap between them and the leaders of Red Bull as much as possible. That’s what the new upgrades are supposed to do, help Mercedes in the upcoming races to shorten the gap. However, Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are not much excited about the newly revamped car.
Mercedes Drivers Are Worried About Monaco’s Street Circuit
The Mercedes F1 team was supposed to test the enhancements in Imola, but the cancellation of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix due to the flood made the team wait longer. On top of that, Monaco is not an ideal place to implement modifications to the car. But team Mercedes is losing precious time and races as well. And Red Bull winning every race is just extending their lead to an unreachable point. Therefore, the German team needs to do something quickly. Moreover, after Friday’s practice session and today’s qualifying results at the Monaco GP, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had mixed feelings about the upgrades and Monaco as the place to test them.
George Russell knows that due to the unique circuit design, Monaco is not the right place for the evaluation of the car. He revealed the same feelings to the press as well. According to the young Briton, “We will forget about the modifications this weekend and just concentrate on getting a better result. But we will focus on the upgrades from the next weekend in Barcelona.” Russell added that the qualifying round is the most challenging part, and Mercedes had struggled as well. Lewis Hamilton qualified at P6, while Russell is at P8 for tomorrow’s main race. Moreover, the Ferrari team had plans to implement new upgrades too at Imola. But they later decided to wait a little longer for testing upgrades in Barcelona after the washout in Imola delayed both Mercedes and Ferrari’s plans.
Hamilton Hopes To Build On The Improvements In W14 After Adding Upgrades
On the other hand, Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton believes that he can feel the improvements in the car due to new upgrades. But he feels a little let down after falling behind to sixth place after the qualifying today. The seven-time champion added, “It is a shame that we did not get the desired result after the test runs, but we can definitely feel improvements.”
Even though Hamilton knows Monaco won’t help the team understand the effects of the new upgrades, he feels it is essential to keep trying to get as much juice out from the car as possible and eventually will have faith in the car. Lewis Hamilton had a better outing with the new upgrades to W14 than his teammate. For him, the car was feeling good generally, and he enjoyed the time out there driving today.
