Lewis Hamilton fires at Mercedes for ignoring W-14 feedback as he claims he wanted ‘certain changes that weren’t done’
Lewis Hamilton talked about how his feedback regarding the W14 was not incorporated by his team Mercedes.
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Ever since the almost incendiary title fight between Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen in the 2021 F1 season, the Silver Arrows seem to have taken a backseat to enjoy Red Bull’s show of brilliance in the pinnacle of motorsports. Last year, Mercedes could only manage a single Grand Prix win thanks to their newer recruit George Russell as Hamilton failed to impress. This led to the fans claiming that Mercedes have lost their winning spirit despite them having the record of eight back to back Constructors’ Championship victories between 2014 and 2021.
In the recently-ended 2023 season, Mercedes fared even worse than their performance in ’22. The team simply failed to prove their drivers’ dominance at any of the Grands Prix even though Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz shone through when Red Bull suffered at the Singapore GP. As for seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, the Briton now has to cope with the disgrace of ending two consecutive seasons in F1 without a single race victory–a new career low for him.
At one of his recent interviews, Lewis poured out his frustration and talked about the Mercedes W14 of 2023 feeling just the same as his car in ’22 which yielded him zero victories. He also mentioned how his team did not make the alterations to his car even though he had asked for them.
I remember it feeling exactly the same. And that definitely was not a great feeling. I’m sure there were frustrations, because I had asked for certain changes, and they weren't done.Lewis Hamilton talked about his grudges against Mercedes for not heeding his advice regarding W14, via BBC Sport.
Toto Wolff claims Mercedes’ W15 car for their 2024 campaign will be very different from W14
Despite having hiccups all through the 2023 season, Mercedes managed to end their campaign on a high after beating Ferrari to the P2 spot on the World Constructors’ Championship. But for the next year, Team Principal Toto Wolff has claimed that the Silver Arrows will be zeroing in on the win. He talked about how they will pick apart every part of the W14 concept and change it completely while building the team’s machine for the next year.
We are changing the concept. We are completely moving away from how we laid out the chassis, the weight distribution, the airflow. I mean, literally, there's almost every component that's being changed because only by doing that, I think we have a chance.
Toto Wolff has also talked about Red Bull’s incredible dominance over the other teams in Formula 1 since 2022. He said the Austrian outfit has had an advantage since their car was so successful last year and they only improved it to become even faster in the recently-ended 2023 season. But Wolff does not want to wait for the rule changes to be brought into place in 2026 for Mercedes to take over Red Bull. Hence, he claims the completely new approach for the W15 construction might be Mercedes’ ticket to beating Red Bull next year.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)