Lewis Hamilton and George Russell both want better high-speed stability from their car according to Andrew Shovlin.
He has emerged as arguably the second-best team in 2023 after introducing a significantly different car for the Monaco Grand Prix.
That saw it revert to a more Red Bull-style solution in terms of its aerodynamic philosophy.
In doing so, its performances have improved and it has overtaken Ferrari as the next-best team in Formula 1.
That’s despite Carlos Sainz handing Ferrari the only non-Red Bull win of the season thus far.
However, in Japan, that challenge was blunted leaving Mercedes’ director of trackside engineering to offer further insight into the vagaries of the W14.
“Lewis and George together, are always giving us feedback on where the weakness is,” Shovlin explained.
“Whilst they might be identifying different causes of it, we know that, fundamentally, the car doesn’t have enough stability.
“We know that they don’t have the confidence to just throw it into a highspeed corner here and not have some concern that the rear’s going to slide more than they want and be a bit of a challenge.”
That’s a trend that, to an extent, can be seen at surface level.
At the British Grand Prix, Max Verstappen controlled the race while McLaren offered his greatest challenge – Oscar Piastri only lost out on the podium to Hamilton due to an ill-timed Safety Car.
In Belgium, another circuit that features highspeed corners, Hamilton was only seventh one spot ahead of Russell.
“What’s useful is that the two of them are, whilst you might see different comments in the press, the two of them are very aligned on where the weaknesses are, where we need to improve it,” Shovlin said of his drivers.
“We can see the GPS from other cars, that all ties in, so you can build a clear picture of where you need to develop.”
Mercedes has admitted that next year’s car will be a sizeable departure from the current design, a point reaffirmed by Shovlin.
“We’re not clinging to any concepts that we had before because we’re very open-minded,” he said.
“We’ve had a pretty chastening, if that’s the word, couple of years and we are a team that’s working very hard to try and get back to the front.”
Discussion about this post