A new season, new challenges, and a new car. On Wednesday morning, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F-1 Team unveiled their car for the upcoming season, the Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 E Performance.
Forged in the learnings of a difficult 2022, the W14 is striking in its appearance. The underlying concept of the W13 has been retained and development focused on core performance areas. That has led to a car that retains the distinctive DNA of its predecessor and introduces a combination of notable changes that are visible on first inspection – such as the gulley bodywork on the engine cover – and others beneath the surface.
The iconic black livery from 2020-’21 has been refined as part of a significant project to reduce overall weight. Driving the W14 will be Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, who line up for their second season together, supported by Mick Schumacher in his role as a reserve driver.
“Our hopes and expectations are always to be capable of fighting for a World Championship. However, our competitors were very strong last year, and we are playing catch-up,” said Team Principal & CEO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F-1 Team, Toto Wolff. “Racing at the front requires resilience, teamwork, and determination. We face up to every challenge, we put the Team first, and we will leave no stone unturned in the chase for every millisecond. This year, we are going all in to get back in front.”
A Refined Concept
“Last year was difficult but it came with lots of learnings,” Wolff said. “I hope 2023 will be proof that we have understood how to unravel the problems and improve the package of the car.
“W13 certainly had performance which we never were able to unlock and put all its downforce on the ground. Our car performed very well at the end of the season. However, we still had the famous bouncing at some circuits and the car never gave the drivers good feedback, which limited them in being able to really push. We have tried to keep all the goodness of the W13 and address its weaknesses.”
The challenge of unlocking the performance in last year’s car, while troubleshooting the problems that the team could address in-season, was met head on by both Brackley and Brixworth. Notably, the development over the year led to a memorable one-two finish at the São Paulo Grand Prix. The progress throughout 2022 excites Technical Director, Mike Elliott.
“Last year, once we had figured out what we needed to do, it took a huge amount of work to get ourselves moving forward,” Elliott said. “Towards the end of the season, you could see the performance improving and the winter has been a reset. We have done all the things that we wanted to do with the W13 last year but weren’t able to because of resource constraints or because our focus was elsewhere fixing other issues.”
Areas targeted include reducing overall weight, giving the drivers a more consistent car balance across the speed range, and better matching the aerodynamic characteristics to the demands of the aero regulations.
This is born out in areas such as a significantly lighter chassis, revised front suspension geometry, cooling system adjustments and a refined aerodynamic concept based on last year’s learning.
“With this generation of cars, the performance is all in the detail,” Elliott said. “When you look at the W14, you will see the DNA of the W13 but also a lot of evolution and detail improvement.”
The year ahead
Reliability, correlation, and learning will be the focus when it comes to pre-season testing in Bahrain. With just three days of running before the first race weekend of the season, an efficient and successful test is imperative.
“We never really got on top of the car balance last year. All the normal work we do at the beginning of the season didn’t happen because of the problems we were trying to rectify,” Elliott said. “We’ve got to learn as much as we can, to work out how to get the most performance out of the car and what we can learn to feed into the next developments.”
“The chassis side have got an enormous amount of work that they want to complete to learn,” added Hywel Thomas, Managing Director of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains. “We need to be in the background doing our job and helping rack up the mileage.”
That symbiotic relationship between Brackley and Brixworth was crucial to the team’s progress last year.
“We worked together, worked out how we can take what we have got on both sides and improved in all areas,” Thomas said. “It’s exciting to see what the result of that continued closeness is this year.”
Fired up
That energy is something that inspires both Hamilton and Russell.
“I have been a part of this team for over a decade and the efforts of everyone never cease to amaze me,” Hamilton said. “I find it inspiring how diligently and passionately each person approaches their work.”
“I have been incredibly impressed with how the team developed the car throughout last season,” Russell said. “We have been building momentum throughout 2022 and we’re excited to see how that has progressed over the winter.”
Last season brought Russell’s maiden pole position and grand prix victory. He is eyeing further successes this year and raring to go.
“It’s been a long winter and there’s plenty of anticipation to see if the W14 lives up to our expectations,” Russell said. “I’m excited and, while there’s a lot of talk at this point in the season, we now need to see how we perform when the car takes to the track.”
For Hamilton, the motivation within burns bright as he looks to come back from the first winless season in his career.
“I’m excited to go racing again,” Hamilton said. “I feel calm, energized, and have my focus sharpened. I’m ready to do what’s necessary to win.”