Were Not Good Enough at Listening”: Lewis Hamilton’s Problem With Mercedes Car Were Never the Priority
Lewis Hamilton is unhappy with the W14 since the start of the 2023 F1 season.
He continued to complain about the car’s grip and that the challenger’s rear end was a constant source of concern for the seven-time world champion.
Mercedes didn’t listen to the Europeans and could be the biggest problem for the Silver Arrows this season. The issues identified by Hamilton were not resolved until late in the season, prompting Mercedes F1 team technical director James Allison to celebrate them.
Allison said the team didn’t focus on Hamilton’s issues because they were focused on other issues that needed to be addressed first. “When we got caught in real hell, the only thing we could do was fix it, because it was the first, second and third problem,” Allison said in the report published by The Race. . The team initially focused on clearing the ball, then moved on to other issues including speed and DRS.
So the issues raised by the 38-year-old that didn’t seem central at the time will be a headache as 2023 continues. He added: “We don’t hear them (drivers) talking about anything else at the same time, that is, that they are not happy with the lack of traffic. George Russell complained about the car’s unreliability in W14. However, the team worked to avoid that with the Austin updates.
The focus now is to fully resolve this issue before the 2024 F1 season. Lewis Hamilton had many problems with Mercedes and the W14. Lewis Hamilton didn’t have the time he wanted, so the British driver was disappointed with the way his car has been this season. Aside from the latter’s stability issues, the W14 isn’t fast either.
The W14 turned out to be one of the slowest cars in the top group. Compared to Red Bull, they are very weak in terms of race speed and have little advantage in DRS.
Thus, in his first race in Bahrain, Hamilton finished fifth, while his friend George Russell finished seventh. Of course, while Mercedes has moved away from the Zero Sidepod design, it hasn’t improved.
Speaking about the whole thing in March this year, Hamilton told the Daily Mail in an interview with the BBC: “Last year I talked about my problem with the car … For example, I’ve driven a lot of cars in my life and I know what I want in a car and I know what I don’t need. me in the car.” He added: “I think it’s about accountability, about saying, ‘Well, we’re not listening to you, this is not the place to do it.'”
However, even after two years of failure, Mercedes still has time to follow this rule and launch a racing car in 2024 with Lewis Hamilton happy.
