© Daimler AG
Mercedes’ Technical Director James Allison says “a new car enables the team to make bigger alterations that are not possible during the year”.
After Mercedes’ 2024 car launch, the team’s Technical Director James Allison explained the team’s design approach for the W15.
“The design of any car is an iterative process, and a long one at that,” the Briton said.
“It stretches back to last year. A new car enables the team to make bigger alterations that are not possible during the year. These are decisions that are taken during the preceding summer.
“But the main approach is unchanging from year-to-year, and that is to try to deal with the things that you’ve identified as weaknesses on your current car.
“Those weaknesses are revealed most starkly when the competition starts. But you get a reasonably good idea quite early in the year of what the Achilles heel might be of a car.
“From there it is about balancing out working to improve those Achilles heels and building on what has worked well.
“You look to your available resources from varying departments and get them to focus their attentions on fixing the issues.
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“As time goes by you can start taking more and more people off the current car and divert their efforts towards the next one.”
As for what Mercedes was able to achieve with their 2024 car so far, Allison said:
“I feel like we have delivered on all the things we said we wanted to do. Some aspects are unbounded and therefore you can never be fully satisfied.
“We will not know until we run the car truly. But I think we can say that we feel like we have worked well.
“Formula One is a relative game. Whether we’ve worked well enough to be competitive, only time will tell.
“We do not know what everyone else has done,” he concluded.
