Mercedes: We’re well into next year’s car

Clearly, Mercedes cannot wait to put the nightmare, that's their W13 behind, and are pushing hard on the development of their single seater for the 2023 F1 season.

Mercedes have dropped the ball big time in 2022, the first year of the new technical regulations with ground effect cars, and despite their W13 being innovative, turning heads with its zero-pod concept, it turned out to be a flop.

The eight-time Constructors' Champions have done some work to improve the car, but it remained inconsistent, fast at some races, painfully slow at others, and in now way able to compete with the mighty Ferrari and Red Bull.

Mike Elliott, Mercedes' technical director shed some light on the team's plans for 2023 as they now have a clear idea what to fix and what went wrong.

"Obviously, we’re well into next year’s car at the moment," he told F1's official website. "I think in terms of trying to predict what sort of lap time you need to find, it’s quite difficult.

"I think there are races this year [where] we’ve been very close [to the front]," he pointed out. "In fact, our race performance has been pretty decent at a number of races. [Then] there have been races where we’re some [way] away."

And the swing in performance between the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix - where Mercedes were relatively competitive - and the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix - where they struggled especially in dry qualifying conditions - is a clear example of what Elliott highlighted.

"I think what we’ve been trying to do is to understand that and I think we do understand that now – we know what we need to put right," he went on.

"You’re then looking to say, how much performance do you need to find? I’m obviously not going to give you a number, because that would be giving a lot away, but I think it’s within the bounds of what’s possible to find," the Mercedes engineer insisted.

"I think we’ve got to work diligently, work hard over the winter, but hopefully we can get ourselves back into position where we're fighting right at the front," Elliott concluded.

Mercedes are now gearing up for the upcoming US grand prix this weekend at Austin, Texas.