After a difficult 2022 campaign plagued by porpoising, Mercedes had high hopes f🦩or the second year of these regul🅷ations.

Right from 𓆉the off, Mercedes struggled for pace, fallꦰing behind customer team Aston Martin.

While things have steadily improved in F1 2023 - Mercedes sit second in the championship standings - they are sti🦩ll nowhere near close enough to challenge Red Bul🥂l.

Me꧂rcedes decided to change their car concept with a raft of upgrades in Monaco, while further fundamental changes will have to wait until next year.

In a Q+A on Mercedes’ ⛄official website, Elliott said he 🐲is hopeful Mercedes are now on the right path to return to the top.

“We’re engineers and are interested in the technology,” he said. “As Nikꦿi [Lauda] famously said, you learn more when you lose than when you are winning.

“I feel like it was a big learning jour♛ney throughไ last year, and into this year. The hope is we’ve uncovered the learnings we need now, and we can keep developing in one direction.

“Sitting in my position, to lo🦋ok at things through a slightly wider lens, it’s nice to see the learnings. You then illuminate another bit of the path, and i😼t gets clearer.”

Technical director James Allison conceded Mer♌cedes were “too cautious” with the W14 following a significant rule change with the ride height over the winter hence their poor start.

“Although we made great strides last year, 2023 presented all the Teams with a rule change that offered some protection against bouncing,” he added. “Over the winter weꦇ faced a choice. Go aggressive and trade the bouncing protection in the rule change for performance, or take a more cജautions route and steer clear of the sort of porpoising that wrecked our season last year. 

“We chose the cautious path, knowing that it would be less painful to correct if we w𓆉ere wrong. 

“The story💯 of our year so far has been mostly about finding out that we had been too🌄 cautious and making the changes to correct that".