2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

The mighty Merc ends up copying the work of Williams, who could have guessed that. They now have the same sidepod and the front suspension, the rear is all Merc.
Hopefully they get major gains and push the bulls

The Williams shoulder is a bit taller. It's hard to really say the Merc is an exact sidepod copy of anyone else. It's inspired, but it's also still somewhat unique in the exact detail of it.

[chrisc90]

Its interesting they have kept the seperate midwing and managed a curved sidepod. Especially given the midwing extends beyond the intake. Would be interesting to see how thats modelled in 3D design. Front of the midwing must be on the same plane as the sidepod intake is my only guess.

I think this was hinted at a few pages ago. The sidepod inlet is at the back of the regs box. The midwing remains are ahead of it. I don't know that it's worth calling a mid wing anymore either. It's not just a very short protrusion which won't be nearly as powerful as its predecessor.

Hopefully we get Kyle on Youtube to do a W14B explained video about it.

[georgekyr]

I guess the feel of the car will be improved also because ballasts are now available and can be used as per driver requirements since the upgrade lost weight as well. While this is hardly affecting directly the car's performance, it can unlock confidence of the drivers and especially Lewis to drive more to the edge than before.

[Farnborough]

How long until the great twitterarty gets going on MB making a car to favour LW over GR.

Overall the specification here looks quite positive for initial run. Good background work to bring strong baseline to FP1.

[AR3-GP]

How long until the great twitterarty gets going on MB making a car to favour LW over GR.

Overall the specification here looks quite positive for initial run. Good background work to bring strong baseline to FP1.

It's been reported that George and Lewis were on different setups so I wouldn't read too much into it yet.

[mvfad]

Layman's question: Why don't they take the old version of the car to compare it in practice with the new version? Hamilton could have the new version and Russell the old one. For me this would be a great form of practical comparison, even more so given that their simulation data was not so accurate until now apparently.

[Farnborough]

Layman's question: Why don't they take the old version of the car to compare it in practice with the new version? Hamilton could have the new version and Russell the old one. For me this would be a great form of practical comparison, even more so given that their simulation data was not so accurate until now apparently.

Its complex enough here without throwing in that level of variable to the mix.

Committed to the update and all data for that is valuable now.

How would they know it wasn't driver variable too ? Even in same car specification (caveat, that GR is running different) it just generates so many different data sets to analyse, all in short time, and to ultimately try and perform on quali and race.

Doesn't look bad at all to me, the current specification that is.

[AR3-GP]

Teams never run last year's car at the pre-season test. Sometimes you just get on with it. It's more efficient. If old spec components were lifed for 4-5 GP, they'd have to manufacture new parts just to run a free practice test. There's many many reasons to just get on with the upgrades and forget about the old stuff.

[SparkyAMG]

The internals have had to change significantly enough that they're not compatible with the old package.

There is new internal packaging of the rads to fit the new sidepods and new floor stays etc so not as simple as swapping the visible bodywork etc.

[214270]

Layman's question: Why don't they take the old version of the car to compare it in practice with the new version? Hamilton could have the new version and Russell the old one. For me this would be a great form of practical comparison, even more so given that their simulation data was not so accurate until now apparently.

Line in the sand. No more will they reference the previous concept, not even for benchmarking I suspect.

[Hammerfist]

3 tenths wasn’t too bad but the car still is too temperamental. The pace seemed to be bad at the start of quali and improved towards the end. Too bad ham didn’t have an extra set of tires to do a final run though. But the varying pace of the car tells me the drivers aren’t able to take more risk at the beginning and need the extra laps to deliver the best lap.

[El_KaPpa]

"Lewis Hamilton post-qualifying: I’m glad I didn’t break the new components, I broke the wing, which I’m sorry for. But, those changes have helped the feeling [of the car], so it’s definitely feeling like it’s going in the right direction.”

by fiagirly

[Alex_Z]

Did Russell not have an extra soft like Hamilton or did he make a mistake? He had the better of Lewis until the last run

[AR3-GP]

Did Russell not have an extra soft like Hamilton or did he make a mistake? He had the better of Lewis until the last run

It looks like he made a big mistake in S2.

[taperoo2k]

3 tenths wasn’t too bad but the car still is too temperamental. The pace seemed to be bad at the start of quali and improved towards the end. Too bad ham didn’t have an extra set of tires to do a final run though. But the varying pace of the car tells me the drivers aren’t able to take more risk at the beginning and need the extra laps to deliver the best lap.

Considering they are running the upgraded car for the first time and at Monaco of all places they did alright. It did look like Lewis broke something on the rear of the car, so that probably hindered his ultimate pace. As for the variations in pace? Could just be due to the need to bring the tyres into the right window and finding space amongst the traffic round Monaco.
Barcelona is where we'll get a better idea of what the upgraded car is capable of and if they can fine tune the setup to smooth out temperamental behaviour from the car. Monaco isn't the best circuit to draw definitive conclusions about an upgraded car that's being run for the first time in anger.