Mercedes have begun examining how the designs of their two leading rivals work in order to turn around their poor start to the 2023 season.
Red Bull dominated the first two races of 2023 with their standard-setting RB19. Aston Martin’s AMR23, which uses the same power unit as Mercedes’ car, has proved a major step forward over their 2022 machine, lapping around two seconds per lap quicker and propelling the team to second in the world championship.
Mercedes has been forced to accept its W14, based on the same visibly different aerodynamic concept as its predecessor, needs a major redesign. Team principal Toto Wolff said they are beginning to look into why their rivals’ cars perform better than theirs.
“We haven’t spent enough time on looking where they find performance because it was important to re-find our own identity, which we did,” he told media after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
“Now it’s only the second step in saying how can we refine our car in order to catch up. And that, of course, means looking closely at these two cars and what they do, how they work, what is it that we may be missing.”
Red Bull lapped around six-tenths of a second faster than Mercedes in qualifying last weekend but their margin in the races was even greater at times, exceeding a second per lap. Wolff admitted the team cannot expect to overhaul that deficit in a single season.
“We are just two races into this year. Is it realistic when we look at the gaps today? No, it’s not. But we just want to give it all we have and then see what the outcome of that is.”
The team began last season at a disadvantage with its W13, but improved it enough to score a single victory in the penultimate race of the year.
“We’ve been able to catch up a lot last year with a car that was bouncing way too much, that was in a way overshadowing everything else,” said Wolff. “And finally we won a race and we got close to them and I think that needs to be the aspiration.”
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