James Allison reveals Mercedes W15 development has been limited by two key factors

Mercedes could start the 2024 F1 season on the back foot after being unable to ‘push the development’ on certain areas on their W15.

Mercedes pulled the covers off the W15 on Wednesday morning - Lewis Hamilton’s last challenger with the team.

Everyone at Brackley will be hoping they’ve got their car right after going through 2023 without a victory - the first time since 2011.

Mercedes have adopted an entirely new car concept, including new chassis and gearbox.

It seems such significant architectural changes have had a knock-on effect on the overall development of the car.

Given the cost involved, technical director James Allison revealed that development has been limited in other areas on the car as a result.

“A new chassis and gearbox were standard for each year, pre-budget-cap,” he explained.

“The latter usually forces you to choose, but there are teams like us who have opted to change both.

“There is no doubt that having a new outer casing of the gearbox and, at the same time, having a new chassis are two big projects that take a part of our financial means.

“This means that in other parts of the car, we have not pushed as much development.”

Despite his revelation about Mercedes’ development, Allison is satisfied the team has “delivered” on their targets.

“I feel like we delivered on all the things we said we wanted to do. Some aspects are unlimited, and therefore, you can never be fully satisfied,” he added.

“However, we won’t know until we actually get the machine moving. But I think we can say that we feel like we’ve done a good job. F1 is a relative game.

“Whether we have worked well enough to be competitive, only time will tell. We don’t know what everyone else did.”