Hamilton questioned why Mercedes F1 car didn’t look like rival designs

Mercedes debuted long-awaited upgrades in Monaco last weekend that included a new sidepod design as the team finally ditched their controversial ‘zeropod’ philosophy. 

The German manufacturer have been on the back foot since the start of F1’s new era of technical regulations which began in 2022 and have managed just a single victory in the last 28 races. 

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton revealed that he and Russell asked Mercedes why their now-revised W14 challenger looked different to the rest of the field.

“The input that we’ve been having as a team, George and I, over the past year, it’s those constant conversations going like: ‘Why does that look like that and we look like this?’, ‘Have we tried that?’” Hamilton said.

“We now have the wider sidepods that are more in the direction of where the Red Bull is. It’s not been my decision to go that way.”

The seven-time world champion said Mercedes are ultimately looking to improve by a second per-lap with their car upgrades to get back on level terms with front-runners Red Bull.  

Further updates are expected to be brought to Barcelona as Mercedes continue their aggressive development push to turn their fortunes around.

“The true step we are hoping for - there’s been around a second delta in race trim, for example, we haven’t covered that with this step but it is a step in the right direction,” said Hamilton. 

“What I felt last weekend was I felt a little bit more confident in the car, more able to commit to the corner.

“So I’m hoping that at this track that’s the same, but hopefully better because there’s a lot of medium and high-speed corners. I’m hoping the flow of the car is better and maybe in following we can follow closer.

“A huge amount of work has gone into this and we’re hoping that it puts us on the right track. Changing train tracks, putting us on the track that can lead to that second.”

But Hamilton knows Mercedes will have their work cut out, with Ferrari and Aston Martin also bringing car upgrades to Spain. 

“Someone said they had upgrades this weekend so we’ll find out tomorrow how good those upgrades are,” Hamilton added. “Just from looking at the numbers of what this upgrade is, before they had their upgrade, maybe it would put us right close to them.

“But we’ll see whether they take a big step or a small step forwards this weekend. I’m still hopeful that we can compete with them this weekend. But it’s a big hope.”