Mike Elliott: the 2022 ‘mistake’ making Mercedes stronger

F1 Beyond The Grid

karenellenbevan

News, Leisure, Sports News, Sports, Automotive

4.7 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2022

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As soon as the 2022 Mercedes F1 car hit the racetrack, the man who oversaw its creation realised it had problems. ‘We made a mistake’, admits Technical Director Mike Elliot. In finding fixes, Mike and his team of engineers have improved Mercedes’ results and learned a lot about themselves. Mike tells Tom Clarkson how they traced the car’s problems to a single design decision, how a year of not winning has helped the people at Mercedes develop, and how he craves a return to the team’s championship-winning form. Looking back, Mike remembers why he chose a career in F1, and the remarkable day two top teams offered him a role. That led him to work in aerodynamics for McLaren, and he recalls a surprising early conversation he had with the team’s young test driver, Lewis Hamilton. McLaren’s former leader Ron Dennis, legendary car designer Adrian Newey, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and drivers Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg and George Russell also feature in Mike’s story. He explains how F1 engineering has become ‘more specialised’ and has advice for anyone who aspires to work in F1 car design.

More BTG interviews with F1 Technical Directors:

AlphaTauri’s Jody Egginton

McLaren’s James Key

Alpine’s Pat Fry

James Allison, former Mercedes TD

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The all new Honda HLV Hybrid is a very good looking car.
0:04.4	So here we are on the radio where its clean lines can't distract from its other qualities
0:10.4	like its spacious interior, advanced safety features, a standard, connectivity, oh hang on.
0:16.7	Are some of you searching online for a picture of it?
0:19.2	Okay, it's gorgeous but you know what?
0:21.6	Go to a showroom, see it in person, maybe even test drive it.
0:25.7	It's not all about looks.
0:27.9	Honda, the power of dreams.
0:33.4	In 2022, Mercedes showed the world something surprising.
0:38.1	And to share this with you all.
0:40.0	But now it is the moment we have all been waiting for.
0:43.2	It's time to reveal the Mercedes AMG F1 W13E performance.
0:50.4	There she is in all her glory, absolutely magnificent.
0:54.7	A new car, a sleek skinny silver arrow.
0:58.1	Sidepods, not really.
0:59.9	The W13 looked different to any other car on the grid.
1:03.9	On launch day, YouTubers bloggers and newspaper writers called it aggressive, radical,
1:09.6	extreme and impressive.
1:12.2	But just a few hours later, as the car did its first slaps at Silverstone,
1:16.6	the man who masterminded its creation wasn't feeling as positive.
1:20.8	We instantly knew we got a problem that we needed to deal with.
1:24.2	We created a fundamental problem early on in the design that we needed to undo.
	...

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