Lewis Hamilton may be left disappointed by upgrades as Mercedes doubts raised

Johnny Herbert “doesn’t know” whether Mercedes can turn around their struggling W14 and has suggested upgrades might not necessarily make a major impact for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. The ex-Sky Sports F1 presenter stressed the Silver Arrows’ package “doesn’t work” and doubts anything the team try could turn around their fortunes.

He pointed the blame at Mercedes engineers for sticking with last year’s philosophy into 2023 despite last year’s poor results. He told Express Sport: “Will the car come good? I don’t see it no.

“They have the same concept they had last year. They seem to be within the team telling Toto ‘we can sort this out, we know how to do that and we will show you we can do that’ and it’s obvious they have not been able to do that. Which is awful because I know there’s a lot of very clever people there who work very hard but it hasn’t worked.

“It’s basically in the same position it was last year, maybe it’s slightly better but effectively it’s not a good concept. Can that change? I don’t know, I know they’ve got James Allison coming in and James is a very shrewd operator and may be able to improve things to a degree.

“But I think the package as a whole doesn’t work so I don’t know how it’s going to change.” The German marque failed to make the progress they expected over the winter with the eight-time champions even dropping behind Aston Martin.

However, the team had set their sights on moving up the field with a series of new upgrades scheduled for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Team boss Toto Wolff had revealed the team would be fitting a new aerodynamic package including a new floor and front suspension.

Ahead of Imola, Hamilton admitted he was “counting down the days” to getting the new parts. But, Wolff tried to manage expectations as he warned the package would not bring a “silver bullet” in their bid to close the gap to Red Bull.

Last year, the Austrian warned the squad were still eight to 10 months behind Red Bull in the development race. Herbert also warned of the difficulties of getting up to speed almost two years into the cycle compared to their rivals.

He added: “They are actually a year and a bit, maybe two years down the line and they haven’t moved forward where everybody else is sort of getting better, Aston Martin being one of those.”