Mercedes knew the W15 was quicker than the start showed.
After years of premature optimism, Mercedes has finally risen from a suspected contender to an actual one.
Lewis Hamilton is in top form to fight for wins on Sunday. George Russell is living up to “Mr. Saturday” with his great qualifying.
The technical staff believed in the new concept so much. They expected to win races from the start. Instead, they slipped into their familiar position: within the points and shy of victory.
The reason for their optimism in the concept was that the car now aligns more with the rest of the grid. They also had some small innovations of their own.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin detailed how their current car concept should of been better out of the gate.
“We were surprised we weren’t quicker at the start,” Shovlin told Autosport.
“We thought we’d made a good car, and underneath it was a good car. It just had some problems that we had to get on top of. Now we’re seeing the result of that hard work.”
The German manufacturer has plenty of momentum heading into the second half of the season. The team won three of the last four races heading into the summer break.
Their hot form comes after a steady stream of upgrades to the Mercedes car. Monaco was the turning point for the team.
Wind tunnel data and simulations now mirror on-track outcomes with greater accuracy, boosting the team’s competitive edge.
“The better your models, the better you can develop offline,” Shovlin said.
“As we have said, we’ve got lots of different models, and correlation is never perfect, but it’s an area where we’ve definitely seen improvement.
Lewis has played a key role in getting the car here. He has tested different setups to understand the car better and given clear feedback on how the car is feeling.
“But being able to do that across the whole weekend was a bit of a challenge for us in the early part of the year. It’s now more useable.”
Now, it can completely succeed in a variety of tracks and has no inherient weaknessed.
A cautious Toto Wolff refrains from forecasting future races, yet eyes double podium spots as an attainable goal for his team.
The Austrian’s measured optimism reflects both prudence and ambition in the rounds to come.
“It is difficult to say what will happen in the final 10 races,” Wolff told Autosport Weekly. “The competitive order between the top four is close.
“That is a good thing though as it is making the sport incredibly exciting. We will be pushing hard to fight for more victories and aiming to get top three in both championships.”
The same team that dominated for seven years has struggled since the 2022 rules change that brought back the ground effect concept.
There have been a series of premature calls of Mercedes being back, only to later fall back to the fourth or fifth-fastest team.
After a season and a half with the zero-side pod design, the team made a decision and they decided to follow Red Bull and other teams.
“The team worked hard to get on top of these issues. As we progressed, we realised what we were doing wrong. From that point on, we’ve made solid steps forward,” Wolf said.
The F1 season is set to restart in Zanavoort, and only time will tell if Mercedes can maintain their recent spell of success.
They won’t be in the title fight, but continued great results can only help the prospects of next year’s car.
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