'How could we have been so dumb?' - James Allison explains key Mercedes changes

Mercedes technical director James Allison has explained the key changes the team have made to improve the performance of their 2024 F1 car.

Despite making a major concept change over the winter, Mercedes did not enjoy the results they expected and endured a challenging start to the new campaign.

An uptick in competitiveness in recent races has come after a series of upgrade packages, and Allison says those developments have helped cure the W15’s inconsistent performance across high and low speed corners.

“Well, I think that the thing that has bedeviled us from the start of the year, the overriding thing, was that you could get the car okay in a slow corner, you could get it quite decent in a fast corner, but you couldn’t get it good in both at the same time,” Allison told the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“What has changed in the last two, three races, is that we’ve modified the car in such a way as it has a reasonable high to low-speed balance and a reasonable through corner balance.

“It 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 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 whether it’s going to follow the trajectory they are asking.”

Mercedes introduced a new front wing design at the Monaco Grand Prix, and Allison said this has been a key factor in improving aerodynamic balance.

“That’s one of the bigger things about it, 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,” he explained.

“A thing that we’ve 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.”

Asked whether this change was a ‘Eureka moment’ for Mercedes, Allison replied: “Eureka moments are ones where you joyfully understand something that no one has understood before and you’ve advanced knowledge in the process.

“That’s a very wonderful thing but this is more of a ‘oh god how could we have been so dumb’ type moment, where you see the path forward and you should have seen it sooner.”

On Mercedes struggles to fully grasp the 2022 regulation set, Allison said: “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.

“We worked on things that did actually make the car better but weren’t the fundamental problem.”

Allison stressed this was “not a budget cap thing” and doubts Mercedes would have got on top of things faster if there were no financial restrictions in place.

Although Mercedes produced their best weekend of the season last time out in Canada as George Russell claimed pole position and the team’s first podium of 2024 by finishing third ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Allison does not expect a repeat at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

“I think that we can definitely get the car, this season, to be properly competitive and to fear no tracks,” he said.

“I think the specifics of this circuit [Montreal] might make our fans think prematurely that we are already there. While I am pretty sure that we will make a good showing in the nearby future races, I would be surprised if we were on pole at the next one.

“But I am absolutely certain we can be as fast as anybody over the coming period.”