Much to the delight of F1 fans, and specifically the Mercedes fans, the latest 2023 challenger by the Mercedes AMG F1 team has been a stunner. The W14 comes in all black with stripes of turquoise from Petronas and yellow on top to give it a stellar look. As the Brackley-based team unveiled the beast on February 15, it soon became the talk of the town. However, there’s a catch as the fans doubt just because it looks stunning, doesn’t mean it is fast. To answer these questions and develop the Silver Arrows’ weapon further, team boss Toto Wolff recently opened up during the launch event.

Wolff shared that the team was ready to play with the bold move that they took in 2022. Sporting a zero sidepod design, the Brackley-based team raised eyebrows. However, the Mercedes honcho hinted at a possible ditch. As per The Race, Toto Wolff said, “I think it’s important to be bold in this sport.”

The 51-year-old supremo went on about the prospect of W14 development, “And the narrow sidepod design is not something that we believe was fundamentally the reason why we didn’t perform. There are no holy cows in our concept. It’s not that we don’t want to follow anybody’s ideas.”

“We kept staying with the narrow sidepod as it is, but you could well see some development from now on that could be coming with the upgrades and the side pods will change – not very soon, but we are looking at solutions. But it’s not a core, fundamental performance part as far as we judge,” further stated the Austrian executive. It is, however, believed that Mercedes will not entirely part ways with the zero sidepod concepts, but have a bit of a tweak.

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The German team is to bank on the supreme reliability of their W-13 last season. Apart from just one retirement, the Brackley-based team luckily didn’t have to see many issues caused due to reliability. Moreover, with porpoising under control, the fight is believed to be very much on in 2023.

Lewis Hamilton has all the praise for new W-14

After the hard 2022 F1 season last year, Mercedes is finally hoping for a change. The very first year after a major rules and regulations change has significantly hampered the Silver Arrows as they finished their season with just a win and in P3.

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However, with the new season looming large, team driver Lewis Hamilton is full of optimism. After having a glance at the “sexiest” W-14, he shared as per Sky Sports, “We’ve redesigned, optimized, and innovated so many parts of the car and that is impressive. And I love the new livery! It says, ‘we mean business’.”

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The 2022 F1 season has been hard for Lewis Hamilton as well. For the first time in his career, the seven-time world champion had to finish his season winless. As last season is past and 2023 seems impressive for the German team, it’ll be interesting to see how Hamilton and Mercedes perform against the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari.