Mercedes reveal where unloved W13 F1 car is being kept after Wolff promise
The German manufacturer endured a season to forget in 2022 with their troubled W13 challenger taking just a single victory in the hands of George Russell at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Mercedes slipped to third place in the constructors’ championship behind Red Bull and Ferrari, while Lewis Hamilton failed to win a race for the first time in a season as he suffered the worst campaign of his career.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said at the start of this year that the W13 would be placed in the lobby area at the team’s Brackley factory as a “symbol of boldness and courage”.
“It's going to go in the lobby,” he said. “But I've changed my approach a little bit, because I wanted to put it in a lobby as a reminder not to rest on our laurels.
“But actually, I want to place it in the lobby because it is a symbol of boldness for me, and courage. We took a radical design direction last year. We dared and we failed.
“So for me that shows a lot the mindset of team, how to cope with success or failure at the same time. And I wouldn't want us to go in any shape or form conservative, and I want us to take calculated risk and be bold.”
And it would seem Wolff has kept his promise - to an extent - with a tweet from Mercedes revealing Russell’s W13 has found a home at the front of the team’s state-of-the-art race bays.
Feeling motivated for the challenge ahead of us.
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) May 31, 2023
Feeling even better that we're taking on that challenge together. pic.twitter.com/R1EfZKFMOO
Mercedes have finally abandoned their infamous 'zeropod' design - which first appeared on the W13 - by debuting a heavily-revised W14 at last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.
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