Minichamps 1:43 Mercedes-AMG W14 – Lewis Hamilton, Bahrain GP 2023 Art. 417230144

A 1:43 model of the Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 E Performance as raced by Lewis Hamilton at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix. Limited to 576 pieces. Resin, in a protective display case, weighing around 325 g.

The car Hamilton said he had warned them about

The W14 kept the zero-sidepod concept Mercedes had introduced the year before — a radical aerodynamic idea that no other team copied and that never worked.

After this race Hamilton said publicly that he had told the team in 2022 the direction was wrong, that he had sat in meetings and said so, and that he had not been listened to. It was an unusually direct thing for a driver to say about his own engineers, and it was reported as a rift.

Mercedes abandoned the concept six races later, arriving at Monaco with conventional sidepods. Toto Wolff subsequently described the whole approach as a mistake the team had taken too long to admit.

The W14 finished the season second in the constructors' championship without winning a single race — the first time since 2011 that Mercedes had gone a full year without a victory, and the end of an era that had produced eight consecutive titles.

Why the Bahrain car is the interesting one

This is the W14 in its original form, before the redesign. Every later model of the car is a different shape.

That makes the season-opener version a specific object rather than one of a series: it is the concept as Mercedes intended it, raced once at the start of the year and then quietly discarded.

Specifications

Scale: 1:43 · Limited to 576 pieces · Resin · Protective display case · Weight: approx. 325 g
Sponsor detail: AMG, Petronas, INEOS, IWC, TeamViewer, Solera