As the 2024 F1 season progresses, Mercedes finds itself stuck in the middle of the table, with drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell describing the team’s challenger car this season, the W15, as in a “precarious situation”.
But in recent weeks, the gap has widened a bit.
A series of upgrades that the team began to deploy from the Miami Grand Prix, including a redesigned front wing, improved the team’s performance on the track and in the standings. The Silver Arrows achieved their best Grand Prix result of the season in Montreal, with Russell scoring the team’s first Grand Prix podium and Hamilton finishing in fourth place. These results, along with Hamilton’s bonus point for setting the fastest lap in the race, gave Mercedes 28 points in the Constructors’ Championship standings, their best result of the season.
Mercedes technical director James Allison said the result came after they finally put together some answers that felt rather “ludicrous”.
speech Beyond the Grid During the podcast, Allison spoke about the team’s start to the year and their search for answers regarding the W15.
“The biggest issue that has plagued us since the beginning of the year is that we can make the car passable in the slow corners, and we can make it pretty decent in the fast corners, but we can’t do both well at the same time,” Allison explained.
This description is very similar to what Russell gave about the W15 at the Miami Grand Prix. SB NationRussell outlined the difficulty of getting the car into an optimal operating window.
“You know, the problem that Lewis and I had last year was this kind of mean rear end, and now all of a sudden we’re struggling to turn the car in slow corners. And the front [end] “It’s been a drain in some ways,” Russell said in Miami, “so I think we’ve gone too far in the other direction. We need to find a middle ground between what we did last year and where we are now.”
In Allison’s view, the team had finally solved the problem and given Russell and Hamilton a more stable car.
“What’s changed over the last couple of races is we’ve actually modified the car to have the right balance from high to low speed and the balance through the corners,” Allison explained.
“It’s kind of a boring technical term and it just means that the driver can trust both the front and the rear axle in fast and slow corners, and that they can trust them from when they brake at the start of the corner all the way through the apex and out the other side,” the Mercedes technical director continued. “That balance is really important for the driver, to know whether the car is going to understeer or oversteer, and whether the car is going to stay on track.”
Allison acknowledged that the breakthrough was a “what the heck” moment for him and his team, “…more like a ‘Oh my goodness, how could we have been so stupid?’ moment where we could see the way forward and that we should have realized this sooner.”
Ultimately, the team went down an aerodynamic route to find a solution.
“I’ve been fighting with springs and bars and all the mechanical parts of the car all year long. [we’re now] We just attack it with the aerodynamics of the car,” Allison said. Beyond the Grid Podcast.
With a solution now found, Allison believes Mercedes can be “quicker than anyone” for the rest of the season.
“I think this season we can definitely make the car competitive enough and not be afraid of any track,” he said. “The characteristics of this circuit are [Montreal] Fans might be prematurely thinking that we’re already there: this circuit has a fairly low range of cornering speeds and might test the cars a little less harshly than other upcoming circuits.
“I’m confident that I can do well in the upcoming races and it would be a surprise if I could get pole position at the next round, for example. But I’m confident that I can be faster than anyone else in the coming period.”
Allison’s full filmography Beyond the Grid The podcast is here.
