23/01/2024
NEWS STORY
Mercedes technical director, James Allison admits to being "excited yet frightened" by his team's 2024 contender, hoping that the rear end of the W15 is less "spiteful" than its predecessor.
While the 2023 Ferrari differed from track to track, sometimes handling erratically on a circuit with the similar characteristics to a track where it had previously performed well, the Mercedes also suffered handling issues, particularly at the rear.
Having returned to the drawing board, early work in the simulator has impressed Toto Wolff, who has said the initial data has given him reason to feel optimistic, however, technical director, James Allison prefers a more cautious approach.
"It's impossible at this time of year to be anything other than apprehensive, coupled with excited, coupled with frightened," he admitted to Motorsport.com. "Those are always the emotions that you feel, and I would imagine that even at Red Bull, after a year of such good performance, they will not be sleeping easy in their beds either because no one knows what everyone else will deliver.
"However, what we do have some hope for is that some of the more spiteful characteristics of the rear end of our car will be a bit more friendly to us, and the handling of the car a happier thing," he added.
"That's all in simulation," he continued, "but nevertheless we've got reasonable grounds to believe that we've made some gain there."
The Briton suggests there has also been an improvement in engine power and downforce.
"On top of handling, you've got all the normal housekeeping type stuff," he said, "just making it lighter, making it more downforcy and hopefully getting a bit of uplift from the power unit side, with the calibration level tinkering that they're still capable of doing under these current rules.
"Whether it's enough, time will tell," he admitted. "But it's nevertheless going to be interesting because we saw some things we knew were problems. We have hypothesized what the reason for those problems were, and we fixed those reasons. It will be interesting to find out how accurate we've been with that diagnosis."
With the new ground effect era heading into its third season, Allison, who recently committed to a new contract with the German team, believes the lack of scope in terms of development will compromise Red Bull whilst favouring its rivals as they seek to close the gap.
"We hope we've done a good job with the new car, and we hope we've addressed some of the shortcomings that were so publicly on display with it last year," he said. "There is also just a little bit that nestles in the back of our heads, which is that the rules themselves have a much more sort of clear upper bound to them in the amount of lap time these cars are capable of producing.
"It's a much more clear upper bound to them than the older generation of cars, which the more love you gave them and the more labour you put into them, the faster they got, seemingly without end. If you look at last year you see from the start of the season to the end of the season, although Red Bull's dominance was near complete and they didn't look vulnerable even to the last race of the year, if you look at the bigger picture, this is a grid that is gradually compressing."