“We’ve Thrown That Out of the Window”: Mercedes Insider Reveals Big Changes in the W15, Sending Shockwaves to the Entire F1 Grid

How far can one fall after being on top of the world for almost a decade? Well, with Mercedes as living proof, they can fall all the way to the bottom! Perhaps a tad bit dramatic, but that’s how Mercedes currently feels as they are unable to mount a comeback and take the fight back to Red Bull. This exact helpless reality has pushed the Brackley outfit to start from scratch.

Mercedes has been trying to breathe some life into Lewis Hamilton’s desire to win his eighth championship, even though he’s said it’s not his ultimate goal. However, Mercedes has been largely unsuccessful in the past couple of seasons. With only one win since the 2021 season, the Brackley outfit will now take drastic measures to rectify its mistake after the 2022 regulatory changes.

Mercedes is now doing what it should’ve done before 2023

The team’s Communications Director, Bradley Lord, made this revelation in the latest episode of The Fast and The Curious podcast. The Brit admitted the team will do everything they possibly can to find performance, which will include bringing major changes to the W15 to become more competitive in 2024. This is coming after Mercedes stuck with its 2022 zero-pod concept in 2023, despite Hamilton suggesting otherwise. And when the Brackley outfit finally got on board with Hamilton’s concerns after the season got underway, the W14 B-spec wasn’t much better either.

When asked how Mercedes is feeling going into 2024, in terms of taking the fight to Red Bull, Lord revealed, “That Red Bull (the RB19) is, by statistics, the most dominant car there’s ever been in the sport’s history.” There’s no doubt that catching Red Bull in 2024 will be a herculean task, especially considering the Milton-Keynes squad started working on its 2024 challenger in August itself. Lord feels the same as well. He added, “I think Toto [Wolff] said in Abu Dhabi, we’ve got Mt. Everest to climb.”

“There’s a huge gap to close, and we’re pretty much changing everything. We’ve gone toward when you don’t experiment and change one thing at a time, we’ve thrown that out of the window. Everything’s up for grabs! It’s going to be a heck of a winter to get it all on time,” Lord concluded.

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The Brackley outfit is putting all its eggs in the basket, and it looks for a complete revamp in the winter, within reason, obviously. This is something Hamilton would be pleased to hear, as the Brit is equally pumped up to fight for another championship.

Lewis Hamilton made a fiery statement of intent after his contract renewal

The Brit has been down since the end of the 2021 season. He has rarely experienced any positive weekends since the fateful race in Abu Dhabi. Hamilton might be down, but he’s not out, and he has showcased that time and again, especially recently after his contract extension. He made a fiery statement of intent for the upcoming season.

In his extension announcement post, Hamilton wrote, “We have never been hungrier to win. We have learned from every success but also every setback.”

Apart from that, he is staying positive as well despite all the setbacks and difficulties with the car and the team’s competitiveness. “Right now, I’m very focused on staying positive every day. I know that’s not easy for anyone. Staying fit and healthy and trying to find that balance of enjoying yourself and your work—balance with family life and all those sorts of things. I think I’ve got a pretty decent balance right now. That’s enabling me to really love what I’m doing,” he revealed in an interview with Sky.

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Let’s see what kind of turnaround Mercedes makes in 2024, as it’s throwing everything out of the window and starting from scratch.