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Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin explains why it’s so hard to catch Red Bull, and discusses whether Mercedes can make a huge leap in performance, like McLaren or Aston Martin.
There’s no doubt that Red Bull has been the dominant force in Formula 1 since the beginning of the 2022 season.
Their dominance only became bigger in 2023, and it seems that all of the other teams are having trouble catching up.
Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin explains why that is.
“The way the rules are, you know, if you launch a competitive car, in a cost cap, it is quite difficult for teams to catch up,” Shovlin said.
“Because if you’ve got a competitive car, you don’t need to be throwing updates at it week in, week out. They started in a very good place.
“And the fact is our wind tunnel resource is not very different to theirs and not very different to Ferrari’s.
“So that initial performance advantage you start with – and it has come down over the year – but when you look at how big it was in Bahrain and Jeddah, it’s always difficult to shut that down in terms of the championship.”
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The two teams that did make huge progress very quickly, and have gotten themselves into the fight for top positions, are Aston Martin and McLaren.
Shovlin was asked if Mercedes can follow their lead and also make a huge leap relatively quickly.
“It’s encouraging because we know that the engine’s obviously, doing a good job in those cars. We’re working hard to try and move forward.
“I think the step McLaren made was pretty impressive. You can see that they’ve changed a fair bit on their car.
“But for us, we do need to close that gap to Red Bull. We’re still developing the car. Whether or not we could find the half a second that they look to have found, I don’t know.
“That’d be a stretch target,” Shovlin concluded.
