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Mercedes’ Technical Director James Allison explains the mindset the team needs to have when it comes to recovery.
After eight years of unprecedented success, in 2022 and 2023 Mercedes has not been able to fight at the top of the field.
The team is now in the middle of a recovery process, and its technical boss James Allison explains the healthiest way of looking at the situation.
“If you were at the top as an organisation and fall back, there are two ways to deal with it,” the Briton told the ‘Performance People’ podcast.
“You can look back and lament what you once were and ask yourself how that could have happened…
“If you have that sort of backward-looking mentality it can be quite depressing and likely to prolong the downturn.
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“The sooner, on the other hand, you’re able to say: ‘We are where we are, let’s not pretend we are deserving of winning at the moment. Let’s figure out what we need to do so we are deserving of winning, and let’s enjoy that transition from what we deserve to be right now and what we’re going to be in the future…’
“The sooner everyone can be on that page: A – the shorter the slump is, and B – the more fun it is.
“Because the sense of growing momentum is deeply joyful and the idea that you’re building the things that are going to allow you to walk around the paddock with your chest out at some point in the future – that’s a really energising thing.
“As much as maybe the outside world might imagine this is deeply painful internally, and on one level it is, it’s also really exciting,” Allison concluded.
