Even before the first race of the year, team principal Toto Wolff reaܫcted to Hamilton’s criticism of the W14 but admitting the entire concept must be reconsidered immediately.

A planned upgrade for Imola (the sixth race of the year) would not be enough, Wolff said, and now Mercedes have explained how their brave ‘zeropod’🦩 philosophy might change and hinted at a time-frame.

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering directo൩r, said: “People have tended to use the word concept when they mean the sidepod design. Toto had said recently that we are looking at a revision that is going to come along in the next few races.

“Give🐎n the gap to the front of course we are going to look at bigger departures and more radical changes.

“But those changes take time to turn into a faster solution in the wind tunnel. You can’t do them overnight. There is quite a lot of development that♑ you have got to do around any sort of big change in geometry in that area.

“We are looking at where we can improve the car, we are looking for potential to develop and you will see visible change꧒s coming on the car over the next few races.

“That gap in qualifying was quite la𝔍rge, we were over half a second to the front. In the race that was even bigger.

“That was compounded by the fact that when you get the tyre deওgradation you get a bit more sliding, the tyres run hotter. You end up finding it very difficult to keep them under any kind of control.

“Th🐬ere is a lot that we need to understand but the key things are really getting on top of that long run degradation, which last year was a strong point for us.

“Clearly, we🧸’ve got something that’s not i♌n the right place that we need to work on. 

“But ultimately the other thing is that performance gap to the front. The raw pace of the car is not g💟ood enough.

“We are working very hard at the moment to ꧟understand what we can do in the short-term future and in the mid-term future to try and get ourselves in a better place.”

Hamilton has previously denied that Mercedes have a 'Plan B' version of the 2023 car, and claimed the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:F1 cost cap prohibits them from buildi🅷ng two different concepts simultaneously.

The W✨14's skinny sidepods are an obvious distinction from other cars on the 2023 grid - not le♎ast Aston Martin, their customer team, who outperformed them at the season-opening F1 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Aston Marꦡtin use a Mercedes-powered engine, so Fernando Alonso's overtake of Hamilton and his podium finish was a stark underlining of the problems faced by Wolff's team.