Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott has proposed the W13 could have been up to four tenths quicker if the squad didn’t make a wrong decision due to a single data point in the initial design of the car.
Mercedes had their worst season since the dawn of the turbo- hybrid era, as they had a concept that required the car to be run very low and stiff, to achieve the maximum performance from the underfloor.
In the early phases of the season, The Silver Arrows were one of the worst teams affected by the aerodynamic porpoising issue – which after an upgrade at the Spanish Grand Prix was revealed to be ‘masking’ a ride problem related to the rear suspension stiffness.
The squad eventually worked out the best operating window for the W13, which was very circuit specific, and after a major upgrade at the US Grand Prix, they had a car competitive enough to win a Grand Prix in the hands of George Russell at Interlagos.
Mercedes Concept Flaws
Mike Elliott told Motorsport.com that Mercedes could trace the car’s concept flaws back to a single data point in the initial design simulations.
He said: “What we targeted in the car, interestingly enough, we had right when we started.
“And we had a result in simulation that caused us to choose a slightly different direction.
“It’s easy to go back and say, ‘why did that happen?’ But I think in all these things, it’s always easy to go back and look and go, if we hadn’t done that step there, we would be in a very different position.
“But I think to have seen that at the time would have been hard.”
Elliott also compared the error to scuba diving where they have an incident pit and said that in scuba diving it’s never the first thing that goes wrong rather ‘it’s because people don’t abort after the first thing that went wrong’, and then a lot of other things happen that means you end up in trouble.
He said that the decision the team made was ‘pretty similar’ to that and a ‘cascade of things came afterwards’ that meant they ended up where they were.
Many believe Mercedes radical ‘zero pod’ concept was a result of the error in the simulation, that led to the floor flexing under high loads, due it not having the required stiffness, leading to porpoising.
Elliott also told Motorsport.com that he believed Mercedes had the second quickest car by the end of the year and that they could have been up to four tenths quicker if they didn’t have the crucial design flaw.
He said: “We ended up in a position where we started the year front of the midfield, occasionally slightly worse than that.
“And we ended the season, I’d like to think, with the second quickest car.
“So, the decision we baked in wasn’t one that was massive, we’re talking about something that if we’d got it right, maybe we could have been three or four tenths quicker.”
However, he added that ‘it’s hard to know’ and that it’d be ‘arrogant’ to think that if they didn’t make that mistake, they’d have a title winning car.
Wolff: ‘Difficult to catch up to Red Bull or Ferrari’
The Silver Arrows have had plenty of time to improve their package ahead of 2023, with Wolff suggesting that the team will remain with a similar design concept despite talk of change.
The Austrian told Autosport however, that Mercedes must remain ‘realistic’ about the chances of closing the gap to Red Bull ahead of the new season.
He said: “I think we have understood how we fell back, where the shortcomings are and where we have gaps in understanding.
“We’re working hard on putting a car on the ground that has addressed all of that.
“But we will only see when starting testing whether we have unlocked the potential we believe has always been in the car.
“We have no doubt, when you’re starting behind by half a second, that it’s going to be difficult to catch up to such great organisations like Red Bull or Ferrari.
“Now, having said that, we are super determined in doing just that. But we need to set our expectations at a realistic level.”
Wolff believes there is still ‘so much potential’ left within the current car concept and hopes the team can at least compete with the frontrunners.
“If we perform in the way we hope, then we’d like to be part of racing at the very front. I think that would be a starting point.
“But we don’t take that for granted, it could well be that the gaps are like they were at the end of last season.
“I think there is so much potential still that within our car, within the concept, the way we drive the car, etc, that maybe our development slope can be steeper in months to come.”
Mercedes will reveal their 2023 challenger on February 15th at Silverstone.