Mercedes and Red Bull have dealt with a long battle of rivalry. With both teams fighting to rise to the top, it can be assumed that the Silver Arrows team is not happy with their conditions. Ever since 2021, Red Bull has pressured Mercedes. And by the end of that season, they succeeded in clinching their first championship title with Max Verstappen. Right after, FIA changed the regulations which demanded Mercedes to lose their next best thing, the W11.
Although Mercedes has tried to come back to the top, they have failed. The team has won only one race in 2022 against Red Bull, while the team took 15 race wins. This has put a lot of pressure on the team as they try to counter-attack the rivals as much. But with the 2023 season starting, the Mercedes’ mantra to beat Red Bull failed them. The team struggled through car technicalities, the car being slow, Hamilton not finding the car comfortable enough, and Toto saying that he is aware the car is… not-so-great.
But when Mercedes announced that the team would be focusing on the next year’s car. Their car is said to be taking inspiration from their “glory days”. And now their engineering director, Andrew Shovlin has more updates for next year. When talking to PlanetF1, the engineer said, “We certainly don’t think like that because our ambition is to be challenging for a Championship next year, so we’re optimistic that we can do that.”
And it seems they have sent out a direct warning to their rivals. The dominant Bulls have now another challenger to watch out for in the 2024 championship.
Will Mercedes finally take out Red Bull from the top in 2024?
Mercedes has had some tough luck considering their performance this season. From being faster than the rest to falling to the back of the grid, Mercedes has seen it all. For all the 8 years that they enjoyed being constructors champions, they now have to watch their failed attempts. However, while Mercedes tried their best to push forth, Red Bull had something else to ward them off with. It seems every time Mercedes has come close to challenging RB this season, the RB19 has gotten seconds faster.
But Andrew Shovlin believes that they will now be implementing everything they have learned to make the 2024 car. The car has already been taking the right path, according to the engineer.
“What we would say, though, is where we were with this car – and in the constraints of the cost cap – we realized we’re not going to be able to shut down that gap to Red Bull this year, but our entire focus is on making sure we can challenge next year.”
Shovlin believes that next year will be for Mercedes. The team has taken quite a slump as they still struggled to understand the new regulations. The new regulations had asked the teams to lose their turbocharged engines. Since the team has been trying to learn the mechanisms that come with the regulations. With this being said, will Hamilton finally have a chance to win his record-breaking eighth title? Or will it stay unbeaten until Max Verstappen catches along?