{"id":293937,"date":"2023-11-03T01:24:35","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T01:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/?p=293937"},"modified":"2023-11-03T01:24:35","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T01:24:35","slug":"pole-position-stubborn-mercedes-shouldve-listened-to-lewi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/racing\/f1\/pole-position-stubborn-mercedes-shouldve-listened-to-lewi\/","title":{"rendered":"POLE POSITION:\u00a0Stubborn Mercedes should&apos;ve listened to Lewi"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>POLE POSITION:\u00a0Stubborn Mercedes should&#8217;ve listened to Lewis Hamilton when he realised they were on the wrong track with\u00a0Mike Elliott&#8217;s flawed concept<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Chief technical officer Mike Elliott has left Mercedes after 11 years<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Lewis Hamilton realised Mercedes were on wrong track with\u00a0\u2018zero-sidepod\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Christian Horner wants Sergio Perez to move nearer to the Red Bull factory\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lesson No 8,347 in how Formula One works. Mike Elliott was \u2018promoted\u2019, as the propaganda had it, in April from being Mercedes technical director to chief technical officer, exchanging roles with the universally admired engineer James Allison (aka The Man Ferrari Let Slip).<\/p>\n<p>A promotion? No more so than Elliott\u2019s departure from Mercedes this week after 11 years to pursue new opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Elliott became technical director in July 2021, taking over from Allison, in readiness for the biggest technical reboot the sport had seen for decades. But the radical design road they travelled down \u2014 the \u2018zero-sidepod\u2019 concept \u2014 turned out to be a cul-de-sac. Red Bull found the highway and the rest is history. While Mercedes have remedied the worst of the porpoising since last year, unravelling intrinsic flaws remains an ongoing process.<\/p>\n<p>The much-vaunted cost cap\u2019s worst trait is that it makes it harder to turn around a technical tanker. But poor Elliott didn\u2019t even try to. He stuck stubbornly with his essentially misguided concept into this season.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton realised the moment he drove the car in the first session of the first race of the season in Bahrain that a major mistake had been perpetuated.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/03\/00\/77346011-0-image-a-27_1698970806992.jpg\" height=\"486\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Chief technical officer Mike Elliott has left Mercedes after 11 years to pursue new opportunities<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/03\/00\/77346237-0-image-a-30_1698971342527.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Lewis Hamilton realised Mercedes were on the wrong track with Elliott&#8217;s flawed concept<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We\u2019re on the wrong track,\u2019 he said, a devastating comment on the team\u2019s predicament. \u2018They should have listened to me.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>A month later, Elliott was shuffled off to his \u2018promotion\u2019. It was said he suggested the job swap himself. Perhaps he did, knowing others may have been better positioned to rectify the faults, though I suspect Hamilton\u2019s hand wasn\u2019t far away. Mercedes\u2019 error was not to have reacted sooner.<\/p>\n<h2>Brazil drips with nostalgia<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s all memories here in Sao Paulo.<\/p>\n<p>There was Michael Schumacher, in 2006, producing a dazzling farewell in his final race for Ferrari, yet missing out on that eighth wonder of the world he wanted.<\/p>\n<p>On to Lewis Hamilton\u2019s suite at the Hilton, Morumbi, the following year after he had downed shots with his McLaren team principal Ron Dennis, the title having narrowly eluded him in his unforgettable debut season.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Excuse me,\u2019 gasped a fragile Hamilton, as he headed off to his bathroom in a hurry.<\/p>\n<p>It was where, 12 months on, Hamilton passed Timo Glock in the rain to win his first title aged 23 to the heart-piercing chagrin of Felipe Massa and his baying fellow Paulistas.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/03\/00\/77346065-0-image-a-28_1698970853262.jpg\" height=\"510\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Jenson Button (above) celebrates becoming world champion in Sao Paulo in 2009<\/p>\n<p>There was Jenson Button\u2019s championship glory a year later, achieved in style after a few jitters in the preceding weeks. I was at the Hilton hotel again the night Button came in after an attempted mugging at gunpoint on the hairy ride back from the track close to the shanty towns. Then a few frenetic words over the phone to get the story in the next day\u2019s newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>And what a track, too. An undulating test. Perhaps I am nostalgic, but Brazil is where the season should end.<\/p>\n<h2>Wolff finds his reverse gear<\/h2>\n<p>Toto Wolff is a major supporter of the F1 Academy, the women-only single-seater championship, of which his wife Susie is managing director.<\/p>\n<p>So which team principal, speaking in November 2017, denounced the imminent arrival of F1 Academy\u2019s predecessor, W Series.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018An all-women championship is giving up on the mission of eventually making girls compete on a high level and against the boys in Formula One,\u2019 opined the prominent paddock figure.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It is undermining what girls are able to achieve.\u2019 So spoke none other than Toto Wolff.<\/p>\n<h2>Damon ready to bid<\/h2>\n<p>A rare stash of motor racing memorabilia goes under the hammer at Sotheby\u2019s on Saturday: the personal collection of Graham Hill. And one of the bidders may be his son and heir, Damon.<\/p>\n<p>Significant among the pieces, put up for auction by Graham\u2019s daughter Brigitte, is her father\u2019s crash helmet in the colours of London Rowing Club. There are also Graham\u2019s four gold stars awarded by the British Racing Drivers\u2019 Club, of which the double world champion was a leading ornament prior to his death in an air accident in 1975.<\/p>\n<p>Damon, executor of his mother Bette\u2019s will, has not ruled out recapturing some of the inheritance that fell to his older sister. \u2018There are pieces that are emotionally meaningful and I may look to buy them,\u2019 the 1996 world champion told me.<\/p>\n<p>The collection is being sold without reserves. The helmet holds a projected value of between \u00a320,000 and \u00a330,000. Among a total of 59 lots is a certificate granting the freedom of London and his This is Your Life red book \u2014 and, among prestigious sporting prizes, the winner\u2019s trophy from the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix, which is expected to fetch up to \u00a350,000.<\/p>\n<h2>Perez under orders<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/03\/00\/77346085-0-image-a-29_1698970894418.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Red Bull chief Christian Horner wants Sergio Perez to move nearer to the team\u2019s factory<\/p>\n<p>I have it on good authority that Christian Horner wants Sergio Perez\u00a0to move from Mexico to Spain.<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old\u2019s situation at Red Bull was not helped by his kamikaze first-corner crash in Mexico City last Sunday. His motivation was pure: he wanted to win his home grand prix, and spurred by a fine start, pressed his claims too vigorously.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Ricciardo remains a contender to take over, having qualified a brilliant fourth for AlphaTauri. Alex Albon is the man they want most for the future but Williams don\u2019t want to let him go.<\/p>\n<p>For now, Red Bull are keen to give Perez the three remaining races to buck up. The 33-year-old, whose contract has a year left, owns a place in Madrid. Now he is under orders from Horner to move there to be nearer to the team\u2019s factory.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/formulaone\/article-12705047\/POLE-POSITION-Stubborn-Mercedes-shouldve-listened-Lewis-Hamilton-realised-wrong-track-Mike-Elliotts-flawed-concept.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>POLE POSITION:\u00a0Stubborn Mercedes should&#8217;ve listened to Lewis Hamilton when he realised they were on the wrong track with\u00a0Mike Elliott&#8217;s flawed concept Chief technical officer Mike <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/racing\/f1\/pole-position-stubborn-mercedes-shouldve-listened-to-lewi\/\" title=\"POLE POSITION:\u00a0Stubborn Mercedes should&amp;apos;ve listened to Lewi\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - 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