Most F1 teams took full advantage of the 4-week hiatus before the action resumed in Baku. They brought in their first set of upgrades to the cars. Mercedes, however, remained patient as they had some major changes in the pipeline. Those amendments were supposed to hit the ground running in Imola but owing to the flooding of the region, F1 called off the race. That delayed the Silver Arrows’ plans by another week. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell took their respective W14s for a spin in Monaco, but going by the results in qualifying, haven’t made much progress. Frustrated by it, their junior driver has hit out at the team for not sticking to one of its most innovative concepts.

Owing to their exploits from 2014 to 2021, Mercedes is not the kind of team you relate to failure. Yet, the Brackley-based team is struggling since the advent of the ground effect regulations. One of the most unique concepts they featured on their car last year and this year as well, was their side pod design.

George Russell slams Mercedes for getting rid of the “zero pod” design

Mercedes’s set of upgrades was nothing short of an overhaul of the design theory of the car. The car saw an aerodynamic revamp, changes to the floor, and a different front suspension. The aerodynamic changes saw the demise of the “zero pod” design. Ahead of the race weekend at Imola, Russell had warned the Mercedes fans against getting their hopes high and told them not to “expect the world to change”. As the results fail to show much improvement, he stays by his comment.

The Race recently quoted Russell as saying, “Sometimes you’ve got to stick with what you believe and sometimes the best course of action is building around your foundations. But we wanted to rule some things out.”

“Equally with the sidepods, the sidepods haven’t necessarily brought any additional performance by going to a more Red Bull concept,” he added. “The magic is more underneath the floor. But we still had to rule it out. We’ve done that now, now we move on.”

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Before the start of the race weekend, experts had warned Mercedes against fielding the changes in Monaco. That is because the track is narrower than most other circuits and also has shorter straights. That makes it difficult to gather reliable data.

Lewis Hamilton gives his verdict on the upgrades

The weekend isn’t going too well for Hamilton until now. First, he crashed during the FP3, and later during qualifying, managed just a P6 finish. Owing to the penalty Charles Leclerc took for impeding Lando Norris, the Mercedes man will start the race from P5. While he too believes the new side pod design hasn’t brought much improvement, he feels such big overhauls much come after much deliberation.

Hamilton said, “It definitely is difficult – when you see it, and you see the proof of the concept, and it’s working, but it’s not as easy as just changing it.”

“You saw that last year the Aston just changed the sidepods and they didn’t go any faster. It took a whole heap of work over the winter,” he added. “But the fact is, we are more in that direction, but still the airflow that they [Red Bull] have, how they control their wake and everything, is still a little bit different to ours.”

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Do you think the new W14 will show some race pace later today? There is a rain forecast during the race. Maybe that will spice things up a bit.