F1 Powerhouse Mercedes Rejected Tempting Red Bull Solution Despite Miserable Start

The 2022 F1 season has been quite an underwhelming one for the Mercedes AMG F1 team. The team with back-to-back constructors’ championships since 2014, slumped to P3 at the end of this year. However, the German team stayed on their true course and kept themselves at bay from copying from the rival Red Bull.

Red Bull were the team to beat this season. As the Austrian team took home both the driver’s and constructors’ championship, the team and their RB-18s were mighty impressive. However, Mercedes decided to stick to their own course and rejected the temptation to find short-term solutions to their issues even after a miserable start to the season in March.

Talking about this, Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin shared in a report published by Autosport, “The goal for us though was always to try and understand it ourselves and learn and find our own path, because if you want to win, and you want to win races and world championships, you don’t get there by copying everyone else’s design.”

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“The sidepod [Mercedes unveiled their own zero sidepod solution in 2022] concept was something that we had to commit to anyway for the year realistically. But if we’d been more focused on just trying to find a quick fix, we may have been copying and rolling it out and seeing what it does,” further asserted the executive from the Brackley-based team.

Where can Mercedes improve if they are to beat Red Bull next season?

The Red Bull Racing team were phenomenal in 2022. Out of 22 races, the team from Austria managed to win 17 of them. This made them indomitable and naturally the team to beat in 2023. However, if Mercedes aims to take on the challenge, there are a few primary issues the Brackley-based team needs to focus on.

Firstly, porpoising has been one of the biggest issues for the German team in 2022. The aerodynamic phenomenon from the ground effect on the new cars affect the W-13s so much, it acted as a hindrance as they pushed for performance.

Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell repeatedly complained about porpoising on a large scale. However, Mercedes seemed to have found the solution to that. Next comes the straight-line speed. The RB-18s were superior to the W-13s when it came to straight-line speed.

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The team from Brackley needs to bring their car to the level of Ferrari and Red Bull in 2023. Otherwise, they will be vulnerable in their defense. All in all, before the lights go out in Bahrain in 2023, Mercedes AMG F1 got their work cut out for them