25/04/2024
NEWS STORY
Admitting that the team was to blame for Lewis Hamilton's failure to make it out of Q1 in China, James Allison says the team needs to cure an instability issue with the 2024 contender.
One minute the W15 is the best ever and the next it is a dog, as Hamilton and his teammate, George Russell, continue to struggle with a car that is constantly on a "knife edge".
Speaking in the German team's latest video debrief, Allison reveals that updates to be introduced in the coming weeks should go some way to alleviating the problems.
"We've got upgrade packages coming to the car but also components that we hope will rectify the underlying balance that is causing us difficulty," he says.
"Much as it's painful to talk in this way after a weekend like this," he continues, referring to the disappointment of China, "I just have to remember that there will be races in the future when we've executed those things, when we're back more on the front foot and when we're progressing, where the pleasure of talking about it will be massive, and that day can't come soon enough.
"We've had something of a front-limited car all year," he admits, "especially in the lower-speed corners, and that was really amped up to 11 this weekend. Once you've got front tyres that don't want to go around the corner, that means the drivers have to wait an eon to get on the power on the exit of the corner, you haemorrhage lap time there.
"In extremis, actually to make the car go around the corner, they have to boot it around the corner with the throttle to loosen up the rear end somewhat, and that kills the rear tyres so you end up overheating on the rear as a result of being front-limited.
"It's no pleasure at all to be taken from a weekend which - even though competently executed and well driven by both guys - no pleasure at all when the hardware itself is not where it needs to be or should be.
"Of course, the challenge that we face in the coming races is to try and move both the set-up of the car and also the pieces that we bring to the car so that that's improved."
Allison admits that a major issue in China, and some of the previous races, was making drastic changes to the set-up mid weekend, the issues event in Shanghai exacerbated by the fact that it was a Sprint, the first of the year.
"We definitely learnt during this weekend that if you're going to be ambitious, be ambitious in the sprint race and then tune it down for the main race rather than the opposite way around," he says.
"Hopefully we'll land a car in a better place, and that the upgrades that we're going to bring to Miami serve us well in a grid that in qualifying at least is really close.
"Around the part of the battle we're fighting, a few hundredths can make a difference sometimes," he continues, "and a couple of tenths would make all the difference in the world. So, we're looking forward to seeing how that all plays out."
Referring to Hamilton's failure to make it beyond Q1, despite having qualified well for the Sprint and having brought the car home in second, Allison says: "I don't need to guess about this because Lewis was absolutely explicit about it afterwards, he said he really wished he had taken the same approach that George had taken which was in his first run in Q1, George fuelled to do two timed laps so that he could have a feel of the car in the first flying lap, do a cool down lap and then have another bite at the cherry which would just give him more of a feel for the car.
"Whereas Lewis went later in the session, one timed lap, one timed lap and Lewis was very clear afterwards that he needed another lap. He'd found that the changes he'd made had made the car more understeery, they'd made it easier for the car to lock up under the braking and he was just pinching those front brakes in a way that was causing him difficulties.
"I think we all saw what happened on his second run, which was only his second timed lap therefore, running down the main straight into that bottom hairpin, he just got a little bit out of shape on the braking, went deep and that's 0.7 of a second just there. That's quite a big gap without which he would have easily got through to Q3 and whatever."
Allison admits that the seven-time world champion should not have been given a car that is so "tricky".
"He would hold his hand up and say 'my mistake, my error'," says the Mercedes technical boss. "I think we would be a little more rounded and say we should have actually encouraged more strongly that he was pursuing a programme a bit more like George's.
"So that's our mistake and we should frankly be making a car that is just not so tricky as the one we've got at the moment which is causing the drivers to make very uncharacteristic errors.
"We have two of the best drivers in the world and locking-up at the end of a straight into a hairpin is not in Lewis's recipe book and it's a consequence of the car being too tricky."