Now that it has already become clear after the first race that Mercedes will probably be out of the fight for the title of world champions again this year – Lewis Hamilton says that the team did not listen to him when it came to designing a new car.
After winning constructors’ titles with relative ease from 2014 to 2021, Mercedes created a car with the new technical regulations that is generally not fast enough to win. During the last year, they progressed and gradually caught up with Ferrari and Red Bull, and everything indicated that they will continue this trend in 2023. However, Bahrain revealed to us that Mercedes is still far behind Red Bull, and now Aston Martin has also overtaken them.
Toto Wolff recently commented that the W14 will never be as competitive as they had hoped, and suggested that they might turn to a new concept.
Lewis Hamilton commented after the race that Mercedes is “miles away from Red Bull”, and he explained this to BBC Sport:
“Last year I told them the problems with the car.”
“I’ve driven a lot of cars in my life, I know what a car needs and I know what it doesn’t need.”
“I think it’s about responsibility. It’s about having to admit a mistake and say, ‘Okay, you know what, we didn’t listen to you, the car isn’t what it should be and now we have work to do.'”
“We have to solve the balance through the turns, study all the weak points and come together as a team, we have to do that.”
“We’re still multiple world champions, but this time we didn’t get everything right. We didn’t even last year, but that doesn’t mean it will be like that in the future.”
