Lewis Hamilton said Mercedes’ decision to bring their car design more in line with Red Bull’s is paying off, but it will take a long time to close the gap to the world champions.
Mercedes brought an extensive update to their W14 for this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, replacing the distinctive ‘zero sidepod’ design the team has used since the current aerodynamic regulations were introduced last year. Asked whether he was surprised it had taken the team over a year to follow the design lead Red Bull set last season, Hamilton said: “Sure.”
“I don’t know what else to say,” he continued. “It definitely is difficult when you see it and you see the proof of the concept and it’s working.”
However he said it will take time for Mercedes to extract as much performance from the philosophy as Red Bull can. “It’s not as easy as just changing it,” he said, pointing out Aston Martin also adopted a similar style of design to Red Bull early in 2022.
“You saw that last year the Aston just changed the sidepods and they didn’t go faster. It took a whole heap of work over the winter.
“The fact is we are more in that direction. But still, the airflow that they have, how they control their wake and everything is still a little bit different to ours.”
Red Bull are especially strong on the straights, as they are able to achieve high cornering speeds without using large wings which increase drag and compromise their top speed.
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“I think there’s work we need to do in order to be able to use a smaller wing [like] they have,” said Hamilton. “We’re still not as efficient, they still have less drag, they still have more downforce pretty much everywhere. And so we’ve got a lot of work to catch up.”
The team intended to introduce its upgrades at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, but that was cancelled due to flooding. As a result it has brought the new parts to Monaco, the slowest circuit on the calendar, where the effect of the changes is hard to evaluate.
Team principal Toto Wolff said they will continue to study the changes at the next races in Spain and Canada.
“I think Barcelona is not enough. I think we need to collect data, that’s why we put it also here in Monaco, collect further analysis, which we will do in Barcelona. Montreal is a little bit of an outlier again.
“Over the next races, hopefully we can really increase the performance of the car. But it’s not going to suddenly be right there. That’s why I’m actually pleased with the time gap that we have today. That was always a mediocre race track for us, so that’s okay.”
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