Andrew Shovlin, the trackside engineering director for Mercedes, has claimed that both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are behind the team’s intentions to develop the W14 following a poor beginning to the season. This comes after the team has had a bad start to the season.

The Brackley-based team had sparked confidence with a significant end-of-season improvement to the W13, which resulted in a victory for Russell at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. This success was credited to the upgrade.

However, because Mercedes stuck with the radical zeropod aerodynamic idea, the team suffered at the opening race of the Formula One season in Bahrain. Hamilton finished fifth, while Russell finished seventh; the seven-time champion finished 51 seconds behind Max Verstappen, who won the race.

Following the race, Hamilton made the sʜᴏᴄᴋɪɴɢ suggestion that the team had not listened to his growth suggestions from the previous season, but Shovlin has reaffirmed that both drivers support the future goals of the team.

Mercedes has maintained her “humble and honest” demeanor.Shovlin shared his thoughts, saying, “I believe seeing how effectively the squad is working together.”

“After the season we had in 2022, we certainly did not hope for a start to the year that was this demanding, and it has proven to be a very difficult beginning to the year.

“Yet, it seems that everyone is quite eager to acknowledge that there is a problem. We are aware that we have a long and difficult road ahead of us, but we are dedicated to making the car better in order to make it to the front of the pack again.

“The drivers are fully on board with that, and they have been cooperating extremely effectively with one another in an effort to assist us in the development and improvement of the car.

“It is reassuring to see that everyone is being very forthright about the difficulty of the task that lies ahead of us, quite modest about where we are and what we need to do in order to progress, and determined to finding solutions because we are dissatisfied with our current level of performance.

We are aware that the standard has not been met, but you can be sure that we will make every effort to raise it.