© Sam Bloxham for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Mercedes’ Technical Director James Allison says he is “absolutely certain” that Mercedes “can be as fast as anybody over the coming period”.
After brining on upgrades over the past three races, Mercedes appears to have come to grips with its difficult car.
During his appearance on the F1 Nation podcast, the team’s Technical Director James Allison explained what they actually did to solve their main issue.
“Well, I think that the thing that has bedevilled us from the start of the year, the overriding thing was that you could get the car okay in a slow corner, get it quite decent in a fast corner, but you couldn’t get it good in both at the same time,” the Briton said.
“What has changed in the last two/three races, is that we’ve modified the car in such a way as it actually has a reasonable high to low-speed balance, and a reasonable through-corner balance.
“Those are sort of boring jargony things that just means that the driver can trust both the front and rear axle in a fast corner and a slow corner, and can trust it from when he hits the brakes at the beginning of the corner, all the way through the apex and out the other side.
“That balance is crucial to a driver that they know whether the car is going to understeer or oversteer, and that it’s going to follow the trajectory they’re asking.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
Asked if the team’s upgraded front wing introduced at Monaco had helped them make this leap in form, Allison said:
“That’s one of the bigger things about it, yeah, and it’s all just trying to figure out how to get the car to go high and low speed in a good way and to go through a corner in a good way.
“I think that we’d been fighting all year with springs and bars and all the mechanical accoutrements on the car, just attacking it with the aerodynamic characteristic of the car.”
James then explained that what Mercedes had reached was not an ‘eureka’ moment, but something a bit different.
“Eureka moments are ones where you joyfully understand something that I guess no-one has understood before and you’ve advanced knowledge in the process and that’s, I think, a very wonderful thing.
“This is more of an ‘Oh God, how could we been so dumb?’ type moment where you see the path forward, and you should have seen it sooner.
“I think it’s quite easy to get distracted by things that are side problems, rather than the main problem, to allow yourself the indulgence that if we just sort out that little thing, then we’ll be okay.
“And so we worked on things that did actually make the car better, but weren’t the fundamental problem.”
As for the team’s prospects for the rest of the year, James said:
“I think that we definitely can get the car this season to be properly competitive, and to fear no tracks.
“I think that the specifics of this circuit [Canada] might make our fans think prematurely that we’re already there.
“This circuit has quite a low range of cornering speeds in it and it tests the car maybe slightly less severely than some of the others that are coming up.
“And while I’m pretty sure that we will make a good showing in the nearby future races, I’d be surprised if we were on pole at the next one, for example.
“But I am absolutely certain that we can be as fast as anybody over the coming period,” Allison concluded.
