The ‘difficult situation’ Mercedes faces over F1 2023 car concept

The German manufacturer are still trying to fully understand their troublesome W13, which has displayed big pওerformance dispa⛄rities throughout the 2022 season.
After getting to the bottom of the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:porpoising issues that plagued Mercedes’ competitiveness at the start of the year, attention switched to𝄹 extracting the true potential of the W13, which features a unique sidepod design that differs greatly to their rivals’ car♍s.
Encourag🔴ing progress was made prior to the summer break, with Mercedes enjoying a streak of podium finishes and securing their first pole position of the season in Hungary.
But Mercedes endured a miserable qualifyin😼g session at Spa-Francorchamps, with Lewis Hamilton ending up 1.8s off the pace, before George Russell went on to finish fourth in the race.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff joked the W13 isn’t going to have “the highest place in the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart” and woul𒁏d be better off “in the caves” after ꧂failing to challenge for wins so far this year.
The inconsistent performance patterns of the W13 has made a decision over Mercedes’ development for 2023 more complicated.

"It's a very difficult situation because we obviously have a certain concept of a car," Wolff explained. "It's not like we can experiment a lot this year and just simply dial st🍎uff out and test.
"So whatever we decide for next year needs to be carefully evaluated because clearly our data don't give us the results, and don't correlate with ꦬthe reality. We have massive swings in performance that we can't really get on top of.
"In this very moment, to take a decision for next year, whatever it may be, changing the concept dramatically - how can you be sure that that's the better direction to go because clearly we'llꦏ be starting a little bit way back?
“That is going 🔯to be part of the decisions in the upcoming few weeks about what we want to do about it.”
Mercedes yet to commit to 2023 concept
Wolff saꦿid Mercedes is yet to commit to a concept for next season w🅘hile internal discussions over what to do continue.
"It's quite difficult t🔜o say what is the concept," he said. "Is it the chassis in its current shape? What is that? Is it weight distribution? Is it where you can put the mechanical and aero balance? Is it the bodywo💝rk concept?
"All these different pillars of the car are evaluated and it could mean that some of that goes and some of that stays. And that's what we're look🍎ing at the moment.”

One-lap pace has been a wea🍒kness for Mercedes compared to their performance over a race distance, with struggles to get tyres up to temperature - partic🥃ularly in cooler conditions like qualifying in Belgium - further hindering the true competitiveness of the W13.
ꩵWolff admitted Mercedes’ failure to p🃏inpoint a specific reason for their performance swings has only made the process trickier.
“Today we are getting it wrong and the non-correlation in various areas is causing us to not perform,” he 🔜said.
“Now, maybe there is a single thing that overshadows everything and we are not doing it justice to question eve🎃ry part of the car.
“Are the tyres something that we✤ fundamentally don’t understand and all the rest is good? Or is the aero messin♎g it up? Or the mechanical balance? That is so difficult to dissect."

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