Hamilton Reflects On Being Told 'He Was Wrong' By Mercedes But Was Proven Right
F1Friday, 23 February 2024 at 14:30
Lewis Hamilton opened up about his conversations with his team when designing the car for the 2023 season, which proved not to be working in the end.
Mercedes came up with the concept of a car that was different from what anybody else bought for the first race of the 2022 season in Bahrain.
It was called a zero-pod concept, as it essentially had no sidepods. The German team struggled with the car, and even though their simulations suggested it should be fast, they could not make it as fast in the real world.
After the end of the 2022 season, it was expected Silver Arrows would abandon the concept and focus on something similar to what everybody else was doing, but it didn't happen.
Mercedes turned up to Bahrain with pretty much the same concept, but again, the team could not make it work. In the new Driver to Survive season, Lewis Hamilton reflected on how he was telling his team ahead of the 2023 season they should change the concept:
"I remember complaining to the team and being like, look, we have to make these changes. Otherwise, this is the trajectory we're going to go on, and this is where we're going to end up. Please, please do something about it."
The 39-year-old mentioned he was told he was wrong, so he stepped back and let the team design the car how they wanted it. Mercedes's engineers were convinced they could make it work.
"I remember they said, like, we know what we're doing, you're wrong. And that was definitely an interesting moment. I was like, okay, I'll step back, don't want to step on anybody's toes."
However, the following season proved the concept wasn't right, and Mercedes lost valuable time and resources again, which meant it could not challenge Red Bull for the title in 2023. Hamilton added:
"Then when we got into the season, then we spoke again [they said] 'oh, maybe you were right."
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