Mercedes technical director James Allison believes the team is making real progress with its W15 despite their poor start to the championship.
Allison returned to lead Mercedes’ design team 12 months ago after it struggled to master the current generation of technical regulations. Its W15 is a significant departure from previous designs but has achieved little success so far and the team lie fourth in the world championship after the first six rounds.“It’s always tough when a car isn’t where you want it to be,” Allison said. “That is not an enjoyable situation.
“On the other hand, once you do start to get your head around it and start to move it forward, that then becomes extremely pleasurable. So hopefully we’ve got the worst of the grim feeling behind us and are now on the upward slope of that.”
While Mercedes had to wait until the end of last season to make the fundamental changes to their car they believed were needed, Allison is confident the direction they have taken is correct and there is more to come from their current design.
“From this last year to this, we shifted a few things that you definitely can’t shift in the middle of a season and you have to do across the winter. And I think those changes were helpful ones.
“I don’t really think there’s too much in terms of the hard points on the car, the stuff that takes a season that can only be changed across the winter, there aren’t too many things of those that are crying out for adjustment. Mostly it’s just a question of hard work to get ourselves in a more respectable place.”
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The team has brought a series of upgrades for its car over the last two rounds and made a promising start to practice yesterday, both cars ending the day in the top five. Allison says they are “gradually getting there” in optimising the W15’s performance across from low to higher speed corners and expects to see further proof of those gains in the coming rounds.
“This track is probably one of the easier ones in that regard because the range of cornering speed is not that high. So it’s a thing that all of us face and I think we’ve been a little slower than others to address it.
“But I think that you’ll see over the coming races that that will be a thing that increasingly we put to bed.”
Mercedes’ Imola updates
Two of the updates Mercedes have brought this weekend are at the rear of the W15, both of which they expect will particularly suit the Imola track.
The most obvious change is the biplane beam wing at the rear. Mercedes say the new design is more efficient than the previous version and interacts better with the diffuser beneath.
Mercedes has also made a smaller change to the outside edge of its rear wing which they say has produced a gain in downforce.
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Tristan
18th May 2024, 9:24
Don’t worry Mercedes, if you keep saying it, it’ll come true eventually. Right? Hopefully?
Seriously though, it is pretty exciting when you think about it, Ferrari and McLaren on the upswing, Mercedes saying they’re seriously capable of continuing to upgrade this platform. Along with Newey being kicked out of Red Bull engineering already.
This year could end up a lot more interesting, still a whole lot of races left!
SteveP
18th May 2024, 11:26
That would only be significant this season if the remaining design team members didn’t understand what Newey had designed and needed clarification to make the updates work.
If that is the case, then RBR are in deep **** for the longer term.
Ajaxn
18th May 2024, 10:08
No sprint weekend should mean more practice time to understand the car, and with that better competition for the race fans who want to see Redbull’s dominance challenged. A part of the reason for Red Bull’s dominance is the reduced practice time leaving those teams behind, to stay behind.
SteveP
18th May 2024, 13:11
If that was a factor, it would imply that the wider design team doesn’t understand the car that Newey designed.
That would mean RBR would be in deep whatsits for the longer term.
Tristan
18th May 2024, 13:17
Well I doubt it has an impact in that sense but if the development race heats up for sure it has to have an impact.
As a core foundational member of the team it may be a house of cards situation.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
18th May 2024, 14:03
the one thing i only really know, is that hopium breads television narratives. Newey leaving doesn’t mean that the next day Red Bull are unable to make their tires work or that they are tuning down their motor. What ever is going on, its not natural. You can’t have a car thats over half a second faster than the rest and lose almost a second in 1-2 races, just doesn’t work like that unless your tires are bad or you are being told behind closed doors to do something to keep the advertisers happy.
Just like in 2021 when Red Bull all but had the championship sealed did they let Mercedes/HAM come back only to have it taken away by a Steward in the final few laps of the season, its just not real.