Since the start of the turbo-hybrid era in 2014, Mercedes has held the iconic record of winning a series of constructors championships and was the invincible power in Formula 1. It was also the team’s drivers that includes Lewis Hamilton who took home a phenomenal seven world championships thanks to his outstanding skill and composure.
But since 2021, issues with their aerodynamics and also the inclusion of regulation reforms of 2022 acted as the catalyst to the decline in Mercedes’ performance.
Recently, it has come to light that the Mercedes AMG Petronas team has hired a new principal aerodynamicist, Adil El Ouazizi. Little is known about El Ouazizi apart from the fact that he served as the aerodynamics development leader at Red Bull Racing for over 5 years from 2018 to 2023. Formerly, he has also been a part of the Ferrari and McLaren F1 teams serving as the aerodynamicist in the respective teams for a couple of years.
Mercedes have hired Adil El Ouazizi as a new “principal Aerodynamicist.”
He was previously the Aerodynamics Development Team Leader at Red Bull, leaving them in July.
It appears he has started work at Mercedes straight away 👀 pic.twitter.com/VeqxBoJnlP
— Mercedes-AMG F1 News (@MercedesNewsUK) August 3, 2023
The reasons behind the engineer’s switch remain a mystery, although, not very long ago, Mercedes similarly lost two of their most talented engineers. Eric Blandin left the team to join Aston Martin and might hold some credit for the team’s enhanced performance. Enrico Balbo on the other hand made a switch to Red Bull.
Mercedes’ performance in the 2023 season
In the past, during the Bahrain Grand Prix, Max Verstappen of Red Bull was nearly six-tenths of a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, and that was a major disparity in Formula 1. When this happened, the team principal Toto Wolff boldly acknowledged the lack of efficiency in the engineering of their car, and the Mercedes team had to work towards improving the situation at hand in order to compete for the world championship title.
Lewis Hamilton says he is concerned after Mercedes suffered with significant bouncing issues during the Belgian Grand Prix.#BelgianGP #Hamilton #Mercedes pic.twitter.com/j5qdHyPcri
— PakPassion Sport (@PakPassionSport) July 31, 2023
A few weeks later, at the Monaco Grand Prix, Mercedes responded by introducing an upgraded version of its W14 car. Along with a redesigned floor and front suspension, the car had new side pods and a new aerodynamic arrangement.
The performance of the car improved as a result of this overhaul, as was seen when Hamilton and Russell finished second and third, respectively, in the subsequent race in Spain, giving the team their first double podium finish of the year.
Despite the upgrades, the porpoising issue, a violent up-and-down movement, that the drivers have been complaining about for a while now posed as one of the factors behind the poor performance in Belgium. Mercedes continued to commit to regular upgrades throughout the season despite the modifications that were made while working on the W15 car.