Mercedes brought to Monaco the new F1 car of 2023: the W14B. The first impressions of the pilots
May 26, 2023
cit took a lot of courage to change during the current season. An extra dose, to choose to do it at Monk. That’s what he did Mercedes, bringing the second version of its W14 to the track at the 2023 Monaco F1 GP. We have seen that there are changes, and they are quite drastic in nature. We find new Red Bull-style bellies, with a more linear and less drastic descent and a more elongated shape but not only.
Friday was the first time on an F1 track for a race weekend W14B, and the sensations about it, are already positive. At least for Hamilton.
“I had a great day and really enjoyed driving out there.” He claimed the number 44 of Mercedes, who finished third in FP1 and sixth in FP2.
“I want to send a very big thank you to everyone in the factories. Building, designing and developing a car is not easy, – he claims. – Everyone has spent countless hours of hard work to get us here. We collected a lot of data today.”
“This is not the place to test an update but the car generally felt good. Too bad I’m not as close to where I hoped to be at the end of last session– concludes the seven-time world champion – but we can already see improvements.”
The day of Russell, however, was much more complicated. The Englishman finished in fifteenth place in FP1 and twelfth in FP2, telling the team radio that he was struggling to find a feeling even with this car.
“Monaco is such a unique track, so it’s not an ideal place to evaluate upgrades but we knew it – confirmed the impressions of teammate Russell. – We are focusing on improving and qualifying here is definitely the most important part of the weekend. We usually do better on Sunday and struggle on Saturday and we have to try to change. I felt improved in FP2, it’s not easy here because there are many changes in the day but we will work hard tonight to do better tomorrow.”
