A Mercedes has been facing difficulties with the car since 2022, with the change in regulations. Despite the W15 Although it has shown improvements compared to its predecessors, it has not yet achieved the expected performance. However, after three GPs from the Formula 1 in 2024, Mercedes is confident that it has received clues about aspects to be worked on. The key point of the analysis is that competitiveness drops when the track is hot.
The team still failed to score beyond fifth place and, after a double retirement in Australiawas 29 points behind third place, McLaren. Even leaving aside the two retirements, the Brackley team has struggled for performance and, at the very different early season circuits of Bahrain, Jeddah and Melbourne, some worrying trends have been revealed.
In the heat of Saudi Arabia, it has already become evident that the W15 has difficulty gripping in high-speed curves, aggravated by jumps and, according to the technical director James Allisona trend has now emerged that the team is less competitive in warmer conditions.
The most recent data was the difference in competitiveness between Australia’s three free practices and the qualifying sessions. In FP3, which was held on a cooler morning, Hamilton and Russell were almost on the same pace as Red Bull and Ferrari.
However, in afternoon qualifying, when Ferrari and Red Bull achieved a good lap time, Mercedes appeared to stabilize, with Russell and Hamilton qualifying seventh and 11th respectively.
“We’re starting to see a pattern emerge: most weekends we have a period where we feel confident about the car, but then in the important sessions, qualifying and the race, it slips away from us,” explained Allison.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
“If we’re trying to draw that pattern, probably the strongest correlation we can make at the moment is that our competitiveness drops when the track is hot, when the day is hotter, and therefore tire temperatures rise with track temperatures.”
“This gives us some clues about what we need to do from now on. From FP3 to qualifying in Melbourne, there have been no changes to the setup.”, he revealed.
Allison said it’s not yet clear whether the W15’s shortcomings can be corrected with configuration work or whether more drastic changes are needed.
“If you have correctly identified an accurate assessment of why our competitiveness waxes and wanes, then you can work over the weekend on a program dedicated to trying to move the temperature and temperature balance from front to back in your favor and use all conventional in-car configuration tools,” he added.
“You can do this work here in the factory, with simulation and so on. But if you come to the conclusion that, after exhausting the available degrees of freedom in terms of configuration, you still need to go further, well, at that point everything gets more difficult.”, analyzed Allison.
“That means there are underlying characteristics, for example in the aerodynamic map that you’ve designed or the suspension characteristic that is aggravating that particular feature. For it to really recover well, you’re going to have to change those underlying characteristics. It could be something quick and dirty or a little more complex and complicated.”, he concluded.
