Mercedes has been working forward on its 2024 plans already and trying to work according to the inputs of the drivers. They both couldn’t manage to take the car up to its maximum limits owing to its low cornering traction. In lieu of this, Mercedes has decided to up their game.
Following this bold announcement by the team, the car will be designed in accordance with seating positions. Earlier, Lewis Hamilton was unhappy about the car’s seating position directly above the front wheels. But it seems like Sky F1 pundit Harry Benjamin isn’t too keen on these upgrades.
Harry Benjamin forecasts Mercedes’ future struggles
Talking to Rosanna Tennant on the BBC’s Chequered Flag podcast, Harry highlighted recent comments and the way Lewis Hamilton was frustrated about the car’s performance. He even felt sorry for George Russell, as he came from a back-marker team to a team struggling with regulations.
“And it seems to only be getting worse. Lewis Hamilton’s punchy comments this weekend saying ‘I’m gonna have to go to the factory to see what they’re doing in the wind tunnel if they are listening to me’.”
“Because right now it sounds like Lewis Hamilton is not being listened to by the Mercedes designers. They’ve told them categorically what they want in terms of drivers and it sounds like they’re not getting that as quickly as they would like.”
He also mentioned that these radical changes being brought about in the 2024 car are more of a gamble in themselves than a guaranteed solution.
“Mercedes have said ‘Look, we are going to change the car from what we have now, it will be nothing like this for 2024′. But they still don’t have a baseline really. If they can change everything for 2024, it’s still a 50/50 gamble.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff confirms major design shift for 2024 F1 season
Toto Wolff has confirmed a lot of fundamental changes in the 2024 car and he thinks that their development won’t be constrained by the cost cap of Formula 1 rules. Toto explained that the team has not fully used their finances for two years in a row and they can definitely bring in more upgrades to the 2024 car while being under the cost cap.
“We look at that trend of our spend during all of the year and what we’ve done is basically allocate resource to various projects. We’ve stayed below that line all year last year, and we’re still below that line this year and that is considering a normal development switch for next year. This is still pretty much on track.”
“The good thing is that we are constantly learning about what the car is doing. There are going to be some fundamental design changes for next year, but it’s not that we’re building stuff. It’s more like what are we simulating? That is not measured in money, or teraflops or wind tunnel hours.”
What do you think about their decision to focus entirely on the 2024 car and will it be successful? Let us know your opinions on this in the comments.
