Lewis Hamilton has made it clear that he is fed up with the Mercedes W14 and he can’t wait to get rid of it. Lewis has been Mercedes’s star performer throughout the era of their dominance, winning the prestigious driver’s championship six times.
Mercedes has been struggling to provide the same race pace and performance that their cars had before the 2022 regulation changes. The era of ground effects has taken a heavy toll on Silver Arrows. Lewis Hamilton regularly asks for improvements from his team, often cheering them on on good days but there is another side to him that not many people have seen.
Lewis Hamilton reveals taking snaps of other F1 cars
Sebastian Vettel was famous in the paddock as ‘Inspector Seb’, due to his constant screening of opponent cars by merely looking at him. He used to give Ferrari various updates regarding other cars that have been performing well and his hard work showed off this year with the Aston Martin AMR23.
It seems that after his retirement, Seb’s dear friend Lewis Hamilton has now taken up the mantle by giving Mercedes visual feedback about the cars in paddock. There is a rule against touching opponents cars when parked in Parc Ferme but Lewis Hamilton has gone a step beyond that to gather visible cues that improve performance and certain aspects of racing. Lewis admitted to this in his recent statements.
“I take snapshots of every car, I saw underneath the AlphaTauri the other day and I went back and was like, ‘hey, they’ve got these things on their floor,'” Lewis further elaborated on his master tactics. “You know, you’re just trying to find everything that you can pass on, [but] they know most of the stuff anyway.”
Lewis’s actions may prove a huge boon for Mercedes, as they can analyze the structures and aerodynamics of other cars legally and try to improve their own machine to be better than those.
Lewis Hamilton’s views on Mercedes W14
The Mercedes W14 was in a very good position after the Mexican GP and Lewis’s encounters with Max Verstappen for a race victory had raised many speculations about a future race win. Lewis Hamilton himself was positive and utterly confident about the performance of his car but alas, ever since the Brazilian GP, the Mercedes W14 has had a massive downfall. Their lack of pace and midfield racing caused Lewis Hamilton to lose in the little tussle he had with Perez for 2nd in driver’s championships.
In general, Lewis has a lot of dislike for the W14, calling it ‘undriveable’ too. Lewis Hamilton was initially optimistic but it seems like the constant regret of not being able to compete has caught up to him. Mercedes boss Toto fully supports Lewis Hamilton’s views and he has made it his personal vendetta now to make Lewis win his 8th world championship.
Despite the fact that Lewis has been quite harsh on Mercedes engineers, do you think the ample information he provides using such snapshots is valuable to the team? Or do you think those pictures do not necessarily matter during the mid-season development of the car? Let us know your views in the comments.
