Mercedes predict Red Bull catch-up - and identify Ferrari and McLaren problems

The W14 has been much-changed all year and, while it hasn’t yet stopped Red Bull winning every grand prix, there is hope it can provide the catalyst for a proper title fight in 2024.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell lead Mercedes into the F1 Italian Grand Prix this weekend hoping to stop Max Verstappen’s winning streak.

Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin was asked if Red Bull can be caught before the new F1 regulations in 2026, and he answered: “We certainly don’t think like that because our ambition is to be challenging for a championship next year. We are optimistic that we can do that.

“If you look at the step that McLaren made, it shows that you can make big steps and we’re still understanding a lot about these regulations.

“Where we were with this car – in the constraints of the cost cap – we realised we’re not going to be able to shut down that gap to Red Bull this year. 

“But our entire focus is on making sure we can challenge next year.

“We are making reasonable strides on development still, but you can see it’s still a busy period of the year because the teams are trying to get the packages on the car that are going to take them through that flyaway region.

“It will slow down in the relatively near future, but we made some pretty significant changes to the design of the car and that’s actually opening up a bit of performance aerodynamically, so we are still finding good performance on the W14.”

Asked if the battle will change with the likes of Ferrari, Aston Martin and McLaren too, Shovlin replied: “I think it will.

“We don’t seem to have the highs and lows that we had last year.

“Ferrari look like they’re struggling at the maximum-downforce tracks.

“McLaren looked like they struggled at the lower downforce in Spa.

“It will no doubt change from track to track but we seem to be doing OK at most circuits and hopefully that will put us in good stead.”