F1 News: Mercedes Forced To Turn Attention To Next Season's Car - "We Have No Choice"

In the development war against Red Bull, Mercedes looks to 2024. and the W15.

Max Verstappen, paired with his rocket ship of a Red Bull, seems to be almost invincible as he proves once again that he can outdrive the rest of the grid at the British Grand Prix. Toto Wolff, team principle of the struggling Mercedes team, has now admitted that regardless of the upgrades they've made to the W14, they'll soon be forced to push their focus to 2024. 

Despite the wind tunnel penalty received by Red Bull for breaching the cost cap in 2021, the RB19 seems to be an unstoppable force on the track. Because of this, it's rumoured that the Milton Keynes team is already focusing on next year's car. So with this in mind, Wolff is looking to do the same thing. 

"I always believe that we can beat Max," the Austrian boss said optimistically to the press after the Silverstone race. "We have a good group of people, best drivers, we just have to give them a car and it's more predictable." 

As we know, Wolff confirmed that the sidepods didn't improve the performance of the car when they were brought in, instead they were to simply remove that variable. The performance improvement actually came in the shape of the new floor and front suspension. 

"You know, we had the side pod concept and the bodywork in the tunnel, very early on already, to see which avenues it would open up and how much it would add to performance," Toto continued.

"The relative loss of downforce, the way we measured it, was substantial. So it's not something that we wanted to follow up early in the year.

"Will we change our design direction? I think we have a great group of aerodynamicists, led by James, and I'm sure that it will be a consideration seeing the step ahead.."

With the press continuing to push about the development of the struggling car, they asked whether the team will be looking forward to 2024 soon:

"I think pretty soon. We have no choice.," Toto admitted.  "It's about coming back, being able to win a world championship in that respect. That's not going to happen this year. So we need to set our eyes into next year."

It seems as though there are major changes coming within the Mercedes camp, so fans of the sport will hopefully be able to look forward to yet more constructors fighting for the win next year.