Mercedes Gambles on Design Philosophy and No One Knows What To Expect: “You Can Never Be Fully Satisfied”

Mercedes unveiled the W15 on February 14th which will be Lewis Hamilton‘s final challenger at Brackley. The seven-time champion has revealed his shocking decision to join Ferrari for the 2025 season. Still, the team appears to have succeeded in building a car that could allow Hamilton to be competitive. This is because the Silver Arrows have adopted a completely new chassis and gearbox design for their cars. Even though the team took a chance by employing a new design concept in the W15, James Allison believes that nobody has an idea of what to anticipate before the start of the season.

Following the car’s introduction, Mercedes technical director James Allison explained the W15 design procedure. According to silverarrows.net, Allison stated, “I feel like we have delivered on all the things we said we wanted to do. Some aspects are unbounded and therefore you can never be fully satisfied. “

Additionally, he mentioned that designing any car is a long and ‘iterative process.’ Speaking about the same, he claimed that a team can make more significant changes with a new car that is not achievable over the year. Allison continued the conversation by saying that despite everything, the team’s focus remains constant from year to year.

This will then allow the team to try addressing the issues that any team would have recognized as weaknesses with their previous car. Any side can then concentrate on balancing out and trying to eliminate its “Achilles’ heel.”

While wrapping up, the technical director emphasized that as time passes, the team can remove an increasing number of members from the current car and focus their efforts on the next one.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff provides his assessment of the W15

Mercedes found it difficult to establish itself against the powerful Red Bull team for the second season last year. This has led the Brackley team to work radically on their 2024 challenger as compared to their earlier habits of working optimally on the car. In light of their diligent efforts during the previous season and in the off-season, Toto Wolff has been sharing his evaluation of the team’s prospects for 2024.

While taking to Formula1.com, Wolff said, “I think we will get an early indication of whether we have solved some of the inherent problems that we had on the chassis side last year.” Subsequently, the Austrian mentioned that the team aims to start the season in the chasing pack and go a step closer to Red Bull.

The team had numerous problems with the W14 last year. At one point, their drivers were complaining a lot about the car’s unpredictability. As a result, Wolff doesn’t set unrealistic expectations for the team and instead stays focused in their attempt to defeat Red Bull in the long term.

While wrapping up, Wolff said, “When you fall, you get back up. We hate losing, and that drives us. But that does not mean that we can’t enjoy the challenge we have in front of us.”

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• James Allison
• Mercedes