Mercedes upgrades: Why its unlikely to show its full potential in Monaco

The historic Monaco streets are hosting its 69th Formula One Grand Prix held at the circuit this year in 2023, the second most of any circuit in history behind the famous Autodromo Nazionale Monza. Mercedes first won an official Formula One world championship race here in 2013 where Nico Rosberg got his first of a hat trick of wins at the principality, repeating the same in 2014 and 2015. But, since regulation changes in 2017 making the cars have wider front and rear wings, opening up development in the barge-board area and having bigger Pirelli tires for better contact patch and grip. It has become somewhat of a bogey track for Mercedes with only one win in five back in 2019 after a gripping fight at the end with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. From what we have seen so far this year, it’s looking unlikely that they could even get onto the podium in Monaco.

It's been a real tale of woe for Mercedes at the start of the new 2022 regulation change, now into the second year of those rule changes and Mercedes look even further away than it did the year previously, struggling with a car concept that is not only slower than their rivals in certain corners but also one that has and continues to be fundamentally flawed in design.

The 2017 rules changes and the poor statistics that followed for Mercedes were linked, Mercedes opted from 2017 to 2021 in the years that these particular regulations were in place, for their car to have a long-wheel-base design. The reason why they did this was to achieve better performance in medium and high-speed corners due to the car possessing a longer floor and a deeper diffuser resulting in more downforce generated. The downside to having a long-wheel-base is that, of course, they are a lot longer than other cars on the grid. Meaning they would struggle on tighter and more street-style circuits such as the likes of Monaco, Hungary, Singapore and Mexico to name a few where Mercedes’s dominant gap over the rest of the field was completely slashed and where others such as Ferrari and Red Bull picked up dominant victories during that period.

Moving forward to the past two years of these new regulations, Mercedes in 2022 again kept with their long wheelbase concept and had the longest car on the grid, again trying to maximise floor performance in the new ground effect era. But surprisingly to us all, for the whole year, they struggled with a car that was porpoising harshly, extremely unpredictable and sedated in low-speed corners. The car’s performance fluctuated from circuit to circuit and to no surprise tracks that focused highly on medium to high-speed corners such as Zandvoort, Hungary and Silverstone gave George Russell his first pole position at Hungary and Lewis Hamilton was in the shot for a win at Zandvoort and Silverstone before late safety cars in both races destroyed his chances.

Mercedes have stuck with the same LWB this year and from the outside seems to be completely set on sticking with the same philosophy that has won them their eight world titles. But with the new 2022 regulations making the cars a lot slower in low-speed corners than in previous seasons, it's either that Red Bull, Ferrari and Aston have focused heavily on this area of development unlike Mercedes or their concepts are just simply better in these lower-speed corners than the Mercedes philosophy. The Miami sector times and GPS readings showed this, George Russell was only 0.4 off Verstappen's best qualifying time into turn 11 showing that in the high-speed corners, they are competitive and are losing out mostly into turn one and two a tricky slow-speed complex which is where Lewis Hamilton struggled and subsequently is what got him knocked out in Q2, furthermore through the slow speed and difficult kerbs through to turn 16 on the long run down into the tight left-hander of turn 17, the gap grew to just under 0.9 tenths of a second from George to Max in this section. The new upgrades are hoping to rectify the issue of their low-speed cornering capabilities and a non-compliant front and rear-end response from the W14.

Turning to Monaco this year in 2023, due to the factors mentioned we can’t judge the upgrades after this one race, as fundamentally regardless of improvements in stability and low-speed corners the car still possesses a fundamental flaw at a track like Monaco with their long-wheel-base which the circuit fully exposes. A track like Spain and Canada should give us some more insight and a more realistic view into the upgrades' true performance and see if there is any hope for Mercedes in salvaging their season and more importantly for them to get onto the right concept path for future seasons to come.