Mercedes still 'making strides' with W14 but entire focus is on 2024

Mercedes says it continues to make progress with the development of its W14 car despite the team's entire focus now being channeled towards its 2024 contender.

Mercedes initially carried over into 2023 its 'zero sidepod' concept from last season.

But realizing that it had reached a dead end with the approach, the Brackley squad rolled out a significantly revamped design in Monaco that has since evolved as part of the team's development programme.

As the latter unfolded over the summer, Mercedes' performance has gradually improved, and the team is now widely considered to have the second-best car in the field behind Red Bull's dominant RB19.

However, the bulls' level of supremacy is such that many believe – including Ferrari's Charles Leclerc – that the Milton Keynes-based outfit will remain at the head of the pack until Formula 1's regulation reset in 2026.

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But Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin is dismissing that prospect. While the team has written off its 2023 campaign, it has every intention of taking the fight to Red Bull next season.

"We certainly don’t think like that because our ambition is to be challenging for a Championship next year, so we’re optimistic that we can do that," Shovlin told the media last weekend in Zandvoort.

"If you look at the step that McLaren have made, it shows that you can make big steps and we’re still understanding a lot about these regulations.

"What we would say, though, is where we were with this car – and in the constraints of the cost cap – we realised we’re not going to be able to shut down that gap to Red Bull this year, but our entire focus is on making sure we can challenge next year."

Nevertheless, Mercedes is still making "reasonable" progress with its current car, although Shovlin expects updates to become few and far between once teams leave Europe and begin the final leg of the 2023 season.

"I think we’re making reasonable strides on development still, but you can see it’s still a busy period of the year because the teams are trying to get the packages on the car that are going to take them through that flyaway region," he said.

"I think it will slow down in the relatively near future, but we made some pretty significant changes to the design of the car and that’s actually opening up a bit of performance aerodynamically, so we are still finding good performance on the W14."

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