Toto Wolff offers W15 insights with Lewis Hamilton complaints to be silenced

Sam Cooper
Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff

Lewis Hamilton has been vocal with his complaints about the W14.

Toto Wolff said he wants to fix all of Lewis Hamilton’s complaints so Mercedes can hit the ground running in 2024.

While the performance of both the W13 and the W14 have been well behind what Mercedes have come to expect, another issue has been the difficulty with which the drivers have had driving it.

Seat position, suspension and the feel of the car have all been cited by George Russell and Lewis Hamilton and Wolff wants that to be a thing of the past.

Toto Wolff wants Mercedes to get rid of silly mistakes

The W15 will be well under way in terms of its design process and Mercedes will hope they have learned what to do and perhaps more importantly what not to do after two difficult years.

Hamilton has been complaining since near the beginning of last season in terms of what he perceives as errors of development and near the top of Wolff’s agenda is getting rid of simple mistakes.

“For 2024 we’re going to change a lot, trying to get back to basics,” he told Italian publication La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“I don’t want to hear Lewis saying, ‘I’m sitting too far ahead with the cockpit, suspension kinematics that we don’t understand’ and so on.

“We have to be decided on what we understand and what we don’t understand we have to put aside: it’s not about technical sophistication but about solid engineering.”

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As well as performance, Wolff also wants to fix the confidence levels both drivers have in the car with that proving to be an important metric in getting the best out of a design. Wolff said the team would be looking to create a “solid platform” which allows their drivers to perform.

“The biggest problem is that the drivers don’t have confidence in the W14, in alternate phases on top of that.

“When they corner they don’t know how the car will behave, perhaps with different feelings between Hamilton and Russell despite adopting the same set-up.

“If you have a solid platform, you take the results home, just look at Albon with the Williams, a simple and aerodynamically efficient single-seater without great means.”

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