James Allison says the recent upgrade package rolled out to the Mercedes W15 has transformed the machine in the hands of the drivers.
Last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix was the first race in 2024 in which Mercedes fought near the front as George Russell claimed pole position before racing to third place on Sunday.
Canada marks much-improved showing for Mercedes
Snatching pole position by 0.000 seconds as Russell set an identical time to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – but crucially, before the Dutch driver – the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix led the opening laps convincingly before falling back as the conditions improved.
While strategy and Safety Cars kept Russell in contention, a crucial error in battle with Oscar Piastri cost him a chance of fighting for second place or even outright victory as Russell proved one of the quickest cars on track in the closing laps following a ‘free’ pit stop under the last Safety Car.
Russell, who led the Mercedes charge as Lewis Hamilton couldn’t quite reach the same heights as his teammate managed, thus took Mercedes’ first podium finish in a Grand Prix this season and confirmed he could feel a step forward from the W15 following recent upgrades.
Speaking in the team’s post-race debrief, technical director James Allison was asked about the impact of the new front wing that was introduced on Russell’s car at the Monaco Grand Prix.
“I would say yes,” he said when asked whether the front wing had performed as expected.
“We had got an idea of how it would behave because we had run it the previous race in Monaco with just George on that occasion. We had two of them in Montreal, and we expected it to perform well.
“We expected it to deliver a bit more in Canada than it did in Monaco, because the Canada circuit, although unusual, is more of a normal circuit than Monaco was. It delivered more performance, it made the car feel easy to drive and well-balanced, and made the car the driver’s friend rather than the thing they had been fighting, which has been what has been problematic in the opening part of the season for us.”
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Along with the front wing, Mercedes updated their floor body in Monaco as well as tweaking their front suspension for Montreal, and Allison said the steps made by the Brackley-based squad are creating a wave of optimism the W15 is starting to deliver on its pre-season potential.
“There is an undercurrent of great happiness, but also a little bit of “Oh, you know, that could have been a win,'” Allison said of the team’s showing in Canada.
“You cannot put that out of your mind, however hard you try. But the main feeling is just a delight that this was another step forward for the car. The first weekend where we could claim to be nicely competitive and maybe a bellwether for better things to come.”
The main achievement of the upgrades has been to improve the working window in which the W15 responds well – the car had shown flashes of great speed during the first third of the season, only to fall bewilderingly off the pace when the chips were down.
“I think we have broadened it substantially,” Allison explained.
“There is more we still need to do, and we will know for sure when we go to the next track, which is Barcelona, because there is really a very substantial range of cornering conditions. There is also a much hotter track, and so that will be quite a stern test of a vehicle.”
But as for whether the car might be competitive at every circuit from now on, Allison couldn’t say – but he did say planned upgrades are likely to widen the car’s operating window further yet.
“The changes we have made are making this car a better car,” he said.
“And that will be true at every circuit we go to. The characteristics of Montreal make it look a little quicker than we have a natural right to command at the coming races. In Barcelona, I think it more likely that we will be competitive, but not right at the front. Because the next tracks are a little bit of a sterner test of a car.
“Hot asphalt, wider cornering speeds. However, I also know what we have got coming. I also know what we are planning to further improve the car. Our challenge is just to keep those upgrades arriving at a pace that the others cannot keep up with.
“In doing that, just bullying our car to the front by virtue of the effort made by everybody here over the coming weeks and months to get the car so that it can have its Montreal weekend or better at any track that we face in the future.”
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