Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott says that the German team now understands the changes to the perormansi that happened in the previous part of the season, so they know what they need to correct for 2023.
Mercedes entered this year’s rules after eight consecutive constructors’ titles, but their dominance ends there because this season their W13 car was not at the required level.
The Silver Arrows rose gradually from race to race. Additional progress was expected after the new technical directive in the second part of the season, but Mercedes again failed to understand the unpredictable car.
George Russell won seven podiums and Lewis Hamilton six, but their performances varied from track to track, so that in the four races before the end of the current season they did not taste victory, something that Mercedes did not expect to happen.
Asked for the latest information on Mercedes’ development for 2023 and how much performance is still needed to recover from its rivals, the Mercedes technical director said: “Obviously, at this point we are already well into the car for next year. I think it’s quite difficult in terms of trying to predict what kind of lap times you should find.”
“This year there are races [in which] we were very close [to the top]. In fact, our race performance has been pretty decent in a number of races. [Then] there were races where we were far behind.”
“We’ve been trying to understand it and I think we understand it now – we know what we need to fix,” assures Elliott.
As a result, the German team’s technical director expressed the hope that despite their gap to Red Bull and Ferrari, that deficit can be turned around with a diligent approach, starting now until the start of the 2023 season.
“Then you mean how much performance do you need to find?” Obviously I’m not going to give you a number, because that would give a lot away, but I think it’s within the bounds of what’s possible to find,” he explains.
“We have to work hard, work hard over the winter, but hopefully we can get back into a position to fight at the top of the grid,” concluded Elliott.
Mercedes holds the third place in the constructors’ standings ahead of the last four races of the season in the USA, Mexico, Brazil and Abu Dhabi, while the gap behind the second-placed Ferrari is 67, and the leader Red Bull is 165 points.
