Lewis Hamilton & George Russell On a Mission That Will Directly Impact Mercedes in 2023

With only the Brazilian GP and the Abu Dhabi GP remaining, what is left for Mercedes to salvage from their train wreck of a season? Tough questions surely must’ve been asked at their Brackley HQ, as they presumably continue to tinker in the R&D department. But they have one thing decided – they don’t want 2nd place in the WCC. Shocking, right?

20 races have taken place in the 2022 season so far. 4 have been won by Ferrari and the rest by Red Bull. Mercedes have been at their unrecognizable worst this season. In the Constructors’ Championship, they trail Red Bull by a whopping 249 points. But they aren’t too far behind Ferrari, who are in 2nd place; only 40 points separate the two teams.

However, the 2nd place isn’t a prize shiny enough for Toto Wolff and his team to target, it seems. Speaking ahead of the Brazilian GP, Wolff said “A win [when asked what he would prefer, 2nd place in the WCC or a GP victory]. The win would prove that our car is back in the fight for wins. P2 could also be because other just dropped the ball and you are scoring more points.”

Lewis Hamilton agreed and said, “Of course they deserve success. But this year we didn’t do the job that the others have done. It would be beautiful, such a blessing, if we did get a win. I think the emotions that would come out would be unmeasurable.”

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After the upgrades Mercedes made to the W13, the car seems to have found some teeth. George Russell even called it the fastest car on the circuit in Mexico, even though they couldn’t beat Verstappen. The potential is there. Can a win come?

But why has Mercedes been so far behind this season?

For a team that won 8 Constructors’ Championships on a roll, it is difficult to comprehend the drastic drop in performance. For Wolff, it ultimately stems from the FIA’s changes that were brought in last October.

“I think we understand more now what it is where we got it wrong with the car. We can almost trace it back to a single decision last October. We thought we could run on the deck, but you can’t! So it’s little hamster steps and, as long as the trajectory is going up, even with little backlashes, I think we’re on a good path,” he explained to Sky Sports F1.

Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin, explained what Wolff meant “What I can imagine he was talking about is, we’ve been doing a lot of experiments and trying things at race weekends in order to learn, and to refine our development direction going forward.”

Shovlin added, “Over the course of this last month, we’ve increased those experiments, and the result of that is we’ve understood some issues with where we developed the car early on, and now we’re going back 12 months ago, what we were doing before the car even turned a wheel.”

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The glimpses the W13 has shown after those changes and upgrades are very encouraging. If Mercedes is able to build on that momentum, they could be very much in the race for the 2023 title.