F1 News: Mercedes Reveals W14 Development Path Post Summer Break

The W14 would most likely receive track-specific upgrades but the focus is to keep pushing.

Lewis Hamilton had complained of a bouncing problem on his W14 F1 car at the Belgian GP. Sadly, Mercedes hasn't been able to go too far in improving their car which still shares a lot in common with its challenging W13 version. 

Max Verstappen has pulled such a lead that he remains nowhere in sight in the championship battle. Consequently, Mercedes is now aiming for a difficult yet achievable second place with Ferrari and Aston Martin being its main rivals. 

While nothing, in particular, has been spoken in terms of a general upgrade, Mercedes chief technical officer Mike Elliott said that the strategy after the summer break would be to just keep pushing which would allow the team to learn more about the car. The additional data would also them with their homework on the 2024 W15 car. He revealed:

“Well, if we start with the summer break we can’t do very much at all.

"We are not allowed to by regulation. We are forced to take a two-week break with no development of the cars and I think for most of the factory that is going to be a well-needed break.

"Something that actually helps them in the second half of the season when we need to bring all of that energy, bring all the upgrades we possibly can to the car.

"In terms of what we can expect from the second half of the season we need to keep pushing, we need to keep pushing because we want to learn more about this car so we can take that into the winter and into the development of next year’s car but also we want that fight for second in the championship so we will keep bringing some upgrades to the car, keep fighting for that second position.”

With a win nowhere in sight, it is rather sensible to accept the current situation, work on what is available at this point in time and prepare well for the next season.