Lewis Hamilton visited the Mercedes factory after criticizing the team’s progress in Japan last weekend.
Lewis Hamilton has kept his promise to visit Mercedes designers at the Brackley factory, making the trip to give his opinion on desired changes after a demoralizing outing at the Grand Japanese Prix.
The seven-time world champion promised to check on progress at Brackley after his trip to Suzuka, saying:
“I know what the problem is; it’s just a matter of convincing people to make the changes. I’m trying to give my opinion but it’s not my job to design the car. I hope they get the job done, but it will have to change very quickly. »
Hamilton was extremely disappointed in Japan after making the most of the W14, finishing 50 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen. The 38-year-old only finished in P5, while his teammate George Russell came home in P7.
Individually, Hamilton is poised to take third place in the drivers’ championship and even put pressure on Sergio Perez for second, but Mercedes could lose second place in the drivers’ championship build into Ferrari’s hands if they continue to struggle.
It’s easy to understand why the British legend is frustrated with Mercedes’ state of development in 2023. Hamilton spoke out against the team’s design philosophy at the start of the year, with the “zeropode” concept eventually being scrapped before Monaco. When comparing McLaren’s progress from the back of the grid to become the second fastest team at Suzuka with Mercedes, the legendary manufacturer needs a major change in fortunes to be able to compete with Red Bull in 2024. .
Fortunately for Hamilton, track technical director Andrew Shovlin offered words of encouragement. He declared:
“We have set ourselves very ambitious goals.
We are changing the car significantly for next year. Whether we can solve all the management problems we face will depend on the completion of a number of projects. “Those projects are underway. They’re not finished yet. But we have good directions to try to improve that. The car will be different. We’ve made a lot of changes to it, But we are very early in its development.” a car. new car to say we fixed the problem.