Andrew Shaolin, Mercedes track engineer, spoke about W13 and the team's many issues with the car for the 2022 season. He admitted that they knew from the start that the car could be problematic.
Mercedes struggled with serious guinea pig problems early in the season, and once they were brought under control, it became clear that the guinea pigs were hiding other problems with the car.
By the end of the year, the team had made significant progress with their only win of the season at the Brazilian Grand Prix, but were still far from the results they wanted and the fans were waiting for. Sailors.
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As Shavlin explained in a postseason video:
“The signs were there from the beginning, even on the day of the shoot we shot in Silverstone.
"Then we spent three days in Barcelona and the car was not that competitive, but we were expecting a big improvement in Bahrain and then we realized that we had a big problem during those tests.
“We installed the upgrade kit and it didn't make the car faster. It's been an interesting year since then, but we've had to work hard to overcome those challenges."
Shavlin added that hopefully the improvement the team saw at the end of the season will carry over to W14. He said:
“A lot of work has been done over the last few months to make sure that the problems of No. 13 do not spill over into No. 14.
“We've made a lot of progress and you can see us getting a little bit closer to the lead in some of the later updates, especially the update we released in Austin.
"We're very focused on making sure we can build a number of upgrades, bring them out on track and see how that affects performance, and hopefully the culmination of that work means we can put together a more competitive package in general next year. "
