Mercedes says it will develop its W15 car in incremental steps in the back half of the 2024 season rather than rely on “big packages” as it anticipates an exciting mid-term future.
Following a challenging start to their 2024 campaign, the Brackley squad has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence since the beginning of the summer, attributed to their dedicated development efforts.
In Austria, George Russell achieved the team's first victory since 2022. This was followed by an emotional win for Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone earlier this month, ending the seven-time world champion's two-and-a-half-year drought.
Mercedes’ assertive development strategy has done wonders for a team that fell heavily off its pedestal in the wake of the introduction of F1’s ground-effect regulations in 2022.
Andrew Shovlin, the Mercedes team’s long-standing trackside engineering director says the German outfit, whose determination never wavered during its struggles, achieved its turnaround through well-defined goals, strategic development, and a strong team effort.
“We set ourselves some very ambitious performance targets to make sure we were competitive,” he explained, quoted by Motorsport Week.
“Competitive enough to qualify on pole and win races by the end of the year. And then we put in some ambitious plans to sort of meet that in stages with various updates.
“What has been brilliant to see is just how well the whole organisation has responded to that challenge to try and get us back towards the front. And what we have done has delivered.
©Mercedes
“It’s nice when you’re in a situation where all your update kits, all the mechanical changes that we’ve made to the car have done what we hoped for.
“And it’s reassuring that we’re sort of seeing that slow and steady move back towards the front.”
Shovlin says Mercedes will keep pushing upgrades in the second half of the season, on a gradual step-by-step basis and with exciting prospects.
“Well, we’re flat out developing it,” he said regarding Mercedes’ pipeline.
“You don’t know what you’re going to be able to bring right to the end of the year because you haven’t done that work. But there’s more of what we’ve been doing.
“We’ll be coming over the next few races, drip-feeding it in more than going for big packages.
“But the mid-term future is quite exciting still. Lots of areas that we’re working on and hopefully those will come through and bring us the lap time that we hope.”
Mercedes AMG F1 Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin (L) with Race Engineer Peter Bonnington.
Shovlin underscored Mercedes’ development approach which has gone beyond just aerodynamic upgrades and focused on its car’s entire mechanical package to improve performance.
“We’ve been working on the mechanical package as well,” he added.
“We’re trying to focus on every area that delivers performance because you need your wind tunnel to be delivering.
“But it’s only so hard you can make that work. Some of the differentiating steps are when you can bring a package that isn’t just the aero development that everyone’s trying to do.
“So, we’ve made good gains there. And it’s a reflection that the whole team’s working well together.
“All the different functions of performance are all trying to work together to make sure that we can bring updates that do deliver what we need.”
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