Toto Wolff has promised to change the 'DNA' of Mercedes' car for 2023 after a humbling campaign which has seen them fail to challenge Red Bull.
Mercedes sit an incredible 240 points behind leaders Red Bull in the constructor standings while neither Lewis Hamilton or George Russell have recorded a race victory in 2022.
Hamilton went close to breaking his duck at the US Grand Prix on Sunday only to be overtaken by back-to-back world champion Max Verstappen in the final laps of the race.
“The DNA of the car is going to change for next year, that’s clear,” Mercedes chief Wolff said.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that our bodywork is going to look very different. But certainly what is part of the DNA of the car, the architecture of the car, will change for next year.”
Mercedes struggled in the early part of the season with porpoising and have found further issues with the car as the year has progressed, being unable to match the speed of the Red Bull in a straight line.
Hamilton lamented his lack of pace after coming close to victory on Sunday, but insisted Mercedes had taken a step in the right direction.
“I think, under DRS they're like 35 km/h faster than us,” he said. “If we're behind them, we're like, 22k faster, I think it is, with DRS on the back straight. So he came from a long, long way back.
“But even without the DRS, I think they're still something like 8 km/h up on us, so we've got a lot of time being lost on the straight, probably four-tenths at least a lap. And so we've got some improvements to make for next year's car.”
Red Bull clinched the constructor championship in the US and, should Mercedes remain third in the standings behind Ferrari, they will have 14% more windtunnel running than Red Bull next term.
And Wolff thinks that could be crucial. He added: "From that point, it was a significant disadvantage so far because all of 2021, we were the leading team and then we won the constructors’ championship.
“So all of the first half of 2022 we had 7% less windtunnel time than the 18 months before of Red Bull and much less than Ferrari. Now it swings the other way around.
“Compared to Red Bull, we’re going to have 14% more if we finish third, so that over time is exactly what the regulations were designed for, to give us the potential to eke the advantage out, to claw it back."
