Mercedes explain W15 gains with front wing ‘one of the bigger things’ introduced

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Mercedes technical director James Allison has explained the improvements in the W15 have come through making the car more balanced, which in turn has allowed the drivers to “trust” it more.

The arrival of a new front wing for George Russell in Monaco, and for Lewis Hamilton in Canada, was the most noticeable outward improvement, and while that is not the only upgrade placed on the car, Allison admitted that part is “one of the bigger things” to help improve the car of late.

Mercedes explain W15 improvements as car makes steps forward

With Mercedes having brought upgrades to several races of late, the team have appeared to make gains compared to the front-running teams, with Russell having placed his car on pole position last time out in Canada before bringing home the team’s first Grand Prix podium of the season.

The team have spoken optimistically about their recent improvements, and technical director Allison went into detail about what it is that has made the car more manageable for the drivers of late.

In detailing the changes that have been made to the W15 to improve it recently, Allison explained to the Beyond the Grid podcast: “Well, I think that the thing that has bedevilled us from the start of the year, the overriding thing was that you could get the car okay in a slow corner, get it quite decent in a fast corner, but you couldn’t get it good in both at the same time.

“What has changed in the last two/three races, is that we’ve modified the car in such a way as it actually has a reasonable high to low-speed balance, and a reasonable through-corner balance.

“Those are sort of boring jargony things that just means that the driver can trust both the front and rear axle in a fast corner and a slow corner, and can trust it from when he hits the brakes at the beginning of the corner, all the way through the apex and out the other side.

“That balance is crucial to a driver that they know whether the car is going to understeer or oversteer, and that it’s going to follow the trajectory they’re asking.”

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When asked if the upgraded front wing had helped them in their improved form, Allison responded: “That’s one of the bigger things about it, yeah, and it’s all just trying to figure out how to get the car to go high and low speed in a good way and to go through a corner in a good way.

“I think that we’d been fighting all year with springs and bars and all the mechanical accoutrements on the car, just attacking it with the aerodynamic characteristic of the car.”

With these recent developments in particular, it had led to the question of whether Mercedes had found a ‘eureka’ moment or the feted ‘silver bullet’ to solve the issues that had been keeping them away from the front of the field in recent years – though team principal Toto Wolff has repeatedly insisted for some time that metaphorical silver bullets do not exist in Formula 1.

Allison was asked about that prospect too, but did not think it was the case – offering up a different analogy instead.

“Eureka moments are ones where you joyfully understand something that I guess no-one has understood before and you’ve advanced knowledge in the process and that’s, I think, a very wonderful thing,” he said.

“This is more of an ‘Oh God, how could we been so dumb?’ type moment where you see the path forward, and you should have seen it sooner.

“I think it’s quite easy to get distracted by things that are side problems, rather than the main problem, to allow yourself the indulgence that if we just sort out that little thing, then we’ll be okay – and so we worked on things that did actually make the car better, but weren’t the fundamental problem.”

Regarding Mercedes’ prospects for the rest of the year, the team’s technical director believes that, while they may not be in contention for victory at every circuit, the team’s fans can start to look forward to weekends with hope of better competitiveness once again.

“I think that we definitely can get the car this season to be properly competitive, and to fear no tracks,” Allison stated.

“I think that the specifics of this circuit [Canada] might make our fans think prematurely that we’re already there.

“This circuit has quite a low range of cornering speeds in it and it tests the car maybe slightly less severely than some of the others that are coming up.

“And while I’m pretty sure that we will make a good showing in the nearby future races, I’d be surprised if we were on pole at the next one, for example, but I am absolutely certain that we can be as fast as anybody over the coming period.”