With the team open to the fact that it has gone down the wrong path with the design of its 2023 F1 car, it is inevitable that the most visual of changes will be the biggest evidence of it doing things differently.
But amid plenty of chatter about ‘concepts’ in Formula 1, Mercedes has been eager to emphasise that there is a big difference between a shift in how a car looks and a proper philosophical step-change.
Earlier this year, Mercedes trackside engineering chief Andrew Shovlin admitted that the team had been guilty of linking the word ‘concept’ to its sidepods too much.
“Perhaps we've adopted the word concept to mean sidepod,” he explained.
"This car is an evolution of the car that we had last year, and a lot of that is tied around where we've got the side impact structure. So now we're looking at bigger departures because it's evident that this hasn't given us the performance that we'd like.
"Saying that, there's other areas of the car that we know we need to improve as well. It would be very misguided to think if we go and put a different-looking sidepod on it, all of that gap is going to vanish.
"The reality is that the vast majority of that gap is going to have to come from other performance areas."
Source: Autosport