© Wolfgang Wilhelm for Daimler AG
BBC’s Andrew Benson says James Allison “is probably the second most highly regarded technical leader in F1 after Red Bull’s Adrian Newey, and his return as technical director is an effective admission that something has not been working in the past two years”.
Autosport.com revealed earlier today that Mercedes decided to return the team’s Chief Technical Officer James Allison to his previous position of Technical Director, while TD Mike Elliot will assume the CTO role.
Back in 2021 Allison was moved from his TD role to become the team’s CTO, while Technology Director Mike Elliott got promoted to Allison’s former position. Allison’s new position meant that he stopped having day-to-day duties when it comes to the design of Mercedes’ F1 cars, while his influence expanded to the team’s applied science division.
A year later, under the new F1 regulations, Mercedes performance noticeably declined, and in 2023 the problems continued.
Despite this, BBC’s Andrew Benson says the move is not a condemnation of Elliott’s work.
“Mercedes’ decline coincided with Allison’s move away from direct, day-to-day, hands-on leadership of the design team responsible for the F1 car,” Benson wrote in his column.
“But F1 teams are complex organisations and it would be overly simplistic to blame Mercedes’ struggles solely on Allison’s move away from day-to-day F1 involvement and Elliott taking over.
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“For a start, because of the timelines involved, Allison would have been leading the design group when the fundamental decisions about the layout of the 2022 car were made, before his move.
“Equally, Elliott, who was head of aerodynamics before becoming technology director, was integral to the design of all Mercedes’ successful cars.
“Nevertheless, Allison is probably the second most highly regarded technical leader in F1 after Red Bull’s Adrian Newey, and his return as technical director is an effective admission that something has not been working in the past two years.”
Benson then provided additional details on how the move came about.
“Mercedes say Elliott began conversations with Allison about the way the team was working and whether staff were being deployed in the best way.
“The conclusion they arrived at was that Elliott would be better used focusing on medium and long-term strategic issues, and that Allison’s strengths were better deployed in returning to the role of technical director and leading the design group,” Benson concluded.
