A revolution in Mercedes? The German team is abandoning its innovative design and bringing sweeping upgrades to Monaco

Is there a gradual revolution at Mercedes? In terms of the technological concept of the W14 monoposto, it seems so. In fact, the first images from Monaco show that the German team is abandoning its philosophy and going in a different direction.

The Mercedes team is most likely slowly abandoning its technological concept with zero sidewalls and coming up with something that we reported earlier this season.

This weekend, F1 has the Monaco Grand Prix on the schedule. And it’s the first images from Monaco that show Mercedes has come to this city circuit with quite a radical upgrade. And it looks like it’s ditching its innovative “zeropods” or zero sidepod design.

It should be noted, the German stable, as we wrote above, has stayed true to its ‘zeropods’ philosophy and retained it on this year’s W14 monoposts, with some major design changes, of course.

Plan B

According to Sky Sports F1 analyst Ted Kravitz, however, Mercedes had a plan B from the start of the season. Namely, another car concept more akin to Red Bull’s design, which they may introduce as early as mid-season if their problems from last season still persist.

That is undoubtedly the case here. Mercedes had already announced these upgrades before the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. However, it didn’t happen in the end because of the floods and the very bad situation in the whole area.

These upgrades included a new floor, side skirts and new front suspension. In the attached Twitter post above, you can see a comparison of the two concepts in terms of just the sidewalls.

So, from these photos, it’s clear that Mercedes has abandoned the idea of “zeppelins”. The air intakes in the side panels are now positioned higher up. Underneath is the air tunnel, which is also part of the RB19, for example.

How this Mercedes upgrade will work is now a question, even stable boss Toto Wolff himself is tempering his exaggerated expectations.

But if this is indeed the route the German team will take, it will also be starting practically from scratch in terms of the aerodynamic set-up of the individual elements on the W14. Data collection in free practice will be absolutely crucial for Mercedes.

Sources: F1, Twitter – Albert Fabrega