Mercedes are planning on bringing new updates to their W14 in order to tackle the strong challenge from Ferrari, which has been a problem for the Silver Arrows since the summer break.
After dominating the sport for 8 years (2014-2021) Mercedes found themselves in a spot of bother in 2022, trailing not only champions Red Bull, but also the scarlet Ferrari.
While the Milton Keynes team has already secured back-to-back championship and is miles ahead of everyone else, it is imperative for Mercedes not to allow a repeat of 2022 and being overtaken by Ferrari.
Mercedes will bring a “major upgrade” to the W14 in Austin.
The reason for not bringing it a race earlier in Qatar is that there is no previous data gathered from the track with the new ground effect cars.
This is in contrast to Cota, which teams know inside-out.
[#AMuS] pic.twitter.com/GXhBNBFeHV
— Mercedes-AMG F1 News (@MercedesNewsUK) October 4, 2023
“While we will have to use the winter to make more fundamental development to the W15, there is plenty of things we can do with the current car which will both make it faster and aid our learning and understanding to develop next year’s car, and that’s what we’ve already been doing and will continue to do.” Head of Race Strategy Rosie Wait said.
“We also mustn’t lose sight of the fact that we are in a really tight battle for P2 with Ferrari and that position in the championship is really important to all of us, and so we have upgrades in the pipeline and will continue to keep bringing them to the car.”