Toto Wolff issues Mercedes upgrade report with more crucial data collected

According to Lewis Hamilton, the W14 is still difficult to drive but “she’s faster” as Toto Wolff gave a review on their upgrades.

There have been two major upgrades for Mercedes this year with the first coming in Monaco where a B-car was deployed to erase the mistakes the Silver Arrows had made earlier in the season.

The next came in Austin where a new floor was hoped to bring increased performance but also a better understanding for the 2024 campaign.

Toto Wolff asses the state of Mercedes’ W14

The Monaco upgrades helped to bring better results from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards and it seems the same effect has been achieved since Austin with Hamilton finishing on the podium in both races since then, albeit with a DQ in the US.

On the upgrades, Wolff said they were still “tricky” but had received good feedback from the drivers.

“I think we have seen that it is providing more downforce, more drivability, the car is a little bit less tricky,” he said.

“Still, the genes are there. Lewis said to me yesterday ‘she’s still so difficult to drive, although she’s faster.’ So I think for us, it was important to see whether, directionally, we were going in the right direction also for next year, and it seems to be on the right path.

“Because you must not forget the car that we’ve designed didn’t have that air flow, these sidepods, leading edges, then all the Christmas decorations we have designed for what we have now. So hopefully that can be a step next year.”

Having spent two years out of the title fight, Mercedes will be keen to put up more of a challenge to their Red Bull rivals in 2024, as well as a number of teams on the grid.

As for the next race in Brazil, Wolff was cautious about predicting another success like they enjoyed in 2022.

“The longer you have the upgrade on the car and you correlate data, the better you’re going to be able to tune it,” the 51-year-old said.

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“Now I don’t want to set the expectations too high with Brazil because last year, it came a little bit as a surprise that we dominated that weekend.

“So I think we have to go there knowing we have a good car and if we put all the ducks in a row then I think we can have a very strong weekend.

“无论是足以击败马克斯(Verstappen)…their package, driver, car, power unit is just very, very complete at the moment.”

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