In 2023, saving weight once again plays a pivotal role in the choice of colour. The Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 E PERFORMANCE that will be driven by Lewis Hamilton and George Russell has been designed to reduce overall weight and give the drivers a more consistent car balance across the speed range. A key element to this design is the liberal use of weight-saving black carbon-fibre material.

Building on past learnings

The 2022 season was a challenging one for the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 team as it struggled to unlock the performance of the W14 model’s predecessor, the W13. Constant development throughout the season to improve the car’s downforce resulted in a memorable one-two finish at the São Paulo Grand Prix.

“We were overweight last year. This year we have tried to figure out where we can squeeze out every single gram. So now, history repeats. You will see that the car has some raw carbon bits, along with some that are painted matte black,” he said at the launch of the W14 racing car,” explains Team Principal & CEO, Toto Wolff.

The signs for 2023 are encouraging, says technical director Mike Elliott. “Last year, once we had figured out what we needed to do, it took a huge amount of work to get ourselves moving forward,” he said.

“Towards the end of the season, you could see the performance improving, and the winter has been a reset. We have now done all the things that we wanted to do with the W13 last year, but weren’t able to because of resource constraints or because our focus was elsewhere fixing other issues.

“We had the famous ‘bouncing’ at some circuits and the car never gave the drivers good feedback, which limited them in being able to really push. With W14, we have tried to keep all the goodness of the W13, and address its weaknesses.