When Mercedes revealed its first F1 contender to the new rules set, last year’s W13, I remember being convinced that its ‘zeropod’ concept must be the way to go. How wrong we both were! It looked so much trimmer, so more tightly-waisted than its rivals – one can only imagine how much effort (and money) was spent on the development of the sidepods and floor design. I wasn’t surprised Merc persisted with it for 2023… but it seems like we’ve reached that point where everyone’s now agreed that it’s a busted flush. In our story, Mercedes F1 technical director Mike Elliott admits the “reality check” of Bahrain, coupled to last weekend in Saudi Arabia, and how it’s now looking at doing things differently. Such a big concept change won’t happen overnight but we need Mercedes to get back in the big game over the next few months – or else Red Bull might just walk this championship by the end of summer… By: Charles Bradley, Global Editor in Chief
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