'We are doing everything we can to get some more performance'

Mike Elliott, Mercedes' technical director, has acknowledged that Mercedes is in worse shape than the team expected. In a video on the YouTube channel from Mercedes, Elliott addresses some of the issues facing the team and explains how the team is now adjusting plans for the rest of the season.

Mercedes stuck rigidly to the same design choices this season as in 2022, especially regarding the sidepods. A remarkable choice, given that 2022 marked the abrupt end of an eight-year period in which Mercedes was unstoppable from the top step of the podium. In 2023, things seem to be even worse for Mercedes, and so Mercedes is already talking about drastic changes over the course of the season.

Exactly what those changes will be is still unclear. "Development means different things for different people," explained Elliott. "I think after Bahrain we had to accept we weren’t where we wanted to be, so we had to look at all the things that make up our car, and work out what could we be doing differently, how could we get more performance. It is a significant gap for us to catch to the front."

Elliott explains that everything is being re-analysed, from aerodynamics to mechanical set-up to work in the simulator. "What else can we bring to the car that’s going to add performance and we try to do that as fast as we possibly can. Because we want to get back to the front, we want to be competing at the front, and the only way we are going to do that is by accepting we’re not in the position we want to be, and fighting and working really hard to get back there."