Lewis Hamilton has accused Mercedes of not listening to his complaints regarding last year’s car when building the W14 package for the 2023 F1 season. After winning just one race last season and finishing third in the Constructors’ Championship, Mercedes chose to continue with its revolutionary zero-side pod concept.
However, in the opening round of the F1 Bahrain GP, Mercedes fell further and stayed in the 4th place machine next to Aston Martin. Hamilton, who finished fifth, says Mercedes F1 failed to take last year’s car problems into account and must be held accountable. “I told them last year what was wrong with the car,” Hamilton said on BBC Radio 5 Live’s post-race podcast ‘Checkered Flag’. “We’ve driven a lot of cars in our lives, so we know what a car needs and what it doesn’t need.” We didn’t listen to them, we didn’t get where we needed to go. I was caught up in the porpassing phenomenon that affected. In the end, it took several rounds to address this unexpected issue before improving the W13’s performance. Mercedes F1 has been optimistic for 2023 as both drivers reported no bouncing issues in pre-season preparations, but it’s not long before the W14 lacks downforce levels to match other top teams. became clear. Hamilton continued to complain of handling imbalance over the Bahrain weekend, eventually finishing 50.9 seconds off the leaders. With such a catastrophic shortfall emerging, Mercedes chief Toto Wolff has denounced the current car concept and stressed that the team needs to move in a different direction. But Hamilton is confident that despite his criticism, the eight-time world champion Mercedes can bounce back to deliver a car that can finally reach the top of the podium. “We need to look at the cornering balance, all the weak points and come together as a team. That’s our job. “We’re still multi-world champions. It just didn’t work out this time.” Hamilton, who won his first world championship in just his second season in F1, endured a barren four-year stint in the title fight at McLaren. The only time Hamilton, the current seven-time world champion, was in contention for the final round was in 2010, when he was still out of the question. Hamilton also has a history of running into problems similar to those facing Mercedes now, just a year following winning his first title in 2008. With the birth of new technical regulations in 2009, McLaren fell from the drivers’ championship in one winter as many teams caught up with them. As a result, Mercedes were able to take two wins at the hands of Hamilton, with major revisions for the rest of the campaign. The British racer has called on the current Mercedes F1 team to turn around a poor start in a similar fashion. “I don’t know when or how the reversal will happen, but we have to make it happen,” Hamilton demanded. “They (Mercedes) didn’t do well last year, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do well in the future.”
