Mercedes’ domination of Formula One between 2014 and 2021 made it seem inevitable it would return to the top, and that its stumble under the new car design rules introduced in 2022 was nothing more than that.
The record books would agree. History will show Mercedes went from finishing first eight times in a row to placing third and second in consecutive years. A blip, not a downfall.
“It will look like it was a respectable result and that it wasn’t so bad,” said Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ team principal. “But this is not counting another team and another driver winning most of the races.”
Wolff has often used the analogy of climbing Mount Everest to describe Mercedes’ push to catch Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the past couple of years. He did so again on Wednesday as the team unveiled its new car, the W15, ahead of its first on-track shakedown at Silverstone.
“It’s a big mountain to climb because if a team is far ahead, like the Red Bull was last year,” said Wolff. “That’s not easy.”
It meant 2024 was always going to be a year of managing expectations at Mercedes, of righting the wrongs from the past two seasons under these regulations and getting closer to the top, even if not to the summit.
But this year has now taken on an extra significance, given it is the last for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes ahead of his shock move to Ferrari for 2025. A last dance for the most successful driver and team pairing in F1 history.
“It’s going to be our last season with Lewis,” Wolff said. “So we are keen on bringing a really quick car and then in the factory, working hard to deliver the product. We shall see today how it goes.”
Lewis’s last dance
The timing of Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes at the end of the year surprised the team. It knew the door was open for him to go, given the ‘1+1’ year structure of the contract signed last August. But never did it expect to start the season knowing it would be Hamilton’s last at the team.
Hamilton admitted during Wednesday’s car presentation it has been an “emotional” period since announcing his move to Ferrari, but, much like his future team at its own launch, he focused on the coming season. He spoke of the excitement he felt seeing his 12th and final Mercedes F1 car in the flesh for the first time.
“It’s very surreal to be here, given that I came here in 2013, so 11 years with the team (and now) starting my 12th,” Hamilton said. ”It is such a privilege to work with a group of people where you see the work they do over winter, and we’ve gone through this process in the last couple of years.”
Hamilton felt that the difficulty of the past two seasons, his only winless campaigns in his 17-year F1 career, had been “really grounding” for Mercedes. “It’s helped us regroup,” he said. “We’ve had to relook at things. And it’s now just going through the important process, being really diligent with our work, understanding the data, understanding the car, maximizing practice.
“Even just the one lap we might get in the rain today might give George (Russell) and I a bit of a feeling of what’s to come.”
Last year’s shakedown at Silverstone was enough for Hamilton to realize he was in for a difficult season, later noting that the car felt identical to its troublesome predecessor. It means the first impressions he and Russell glean today and through testing in Bahrain next week will inform expectations for this year.
Unlike 2023, when the upswing through the tail end of 2022 proved misleading for any thought of a renewed title charge, the hype around Mercedes’ chances seems rather mellow. For Hamilton to sign off with a record-breaking eighth world title, the one so controversially denied in 2021, feels like a long shot considering the gap to Red Bull last year. Breaking his win drought, which dates to December 2021, would be a more reasonable goal.
Wolff said Mercedes’ aim was to “consolidate our positions towards Ferrari and McLaren, sometimes Aston Martin, and be at the forward part of that group, at the same time as trying to race at the very front,” acknowledging how hard it would be to catch Red Bull.
“We know how difficult it is, because you’re a step behind your main competitor that has gotten it right straight from the get go,” Wolff said. “But we love the challenge and that is why we are all so eager to see the car finally driving.”
What’s new on Mercedes’ W15
Besides the revamped livery, blending more silver into the all-black design used last year, Mercedes knew it had to make sizable changes heading into 2024 to cut the gap to Red Bull. The team realized early in 2023 that its car concept, running radical slim sidepods, would not lead it back to the top, and that it had to change course.
Wolff said the new car was a “complete relaunch” for Mercedes. “It is very different, not only on the aerodynamic surfaces, but mainly underneath,” he said. “There are so many mechanical changes that we’ve done that we hope are going to translate into more performance, more predictability, a car that the drivers can really push.”
One particularly weak area of the outgoing car was the rear end, which the drivers called “unpredictable” and “spiteful”, according to technical director James Allison. They lacked the confidence they needed going through the corners. The car also proved too draggy in a straight line, leading to a focus on the integration of the rear wing and the beam wing to also bolster the DRS effect, an area that was a particular strength for Red Bull through 2023. “We have worked on that to try and create a car that is reassuring to the drivers,” Allison explained.
The team has also introduced a new chassis and gearbox design for this year, something Allison said took “a chunk of our available firepower” in a cost cap era. “It does mean that in other parts of the car we have not tried to reinvent the wheel,” he said. “But it has allowed us to undertake a couple of big projects without breaking the bank.”
Allison said the Mercedes technical group had “delivered on all the things we said we wanted to do” over the winter, with the natural caveat of not knowing what steps forward the rest of the field has made. He teased a wide range of aerodynamic experiments in the early part of the year to ensure there was a “decent package” of updates ready for the start of the European season in May.
Planning for the future
As Hamilton nears the end of his time at Mercedes this year and prepares to swap his black overalls for Ferrari’s famous red, the team will naturally gravitate towards its planning for the future. Much of that will revolve around Russell.
Entering his third season with Mercedes, Russell has established himself as one of the quickest drivers on the grid. He’s been largely level with Hamilton for qualifying pace in their two seasons together, and spoke at the end of last year about feeling in a better place than ever both on- and off-track.
“I couldn’t wish for a better team leader when Lewis leaves, no doubt about that,” Wolff said of Russell after Hamilton’s exit was announced. “We have such a solid foundation, such a quick and talented and intelligent guy in the car. We just need to take the right choice for the second driver (for 2025).”
Mercedes is in zero rush to decide who that second driver will be, nor does it need to be. It holds the key to the driver market and has time on its side, particularly as it gives thought to 17-year-old protege Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s future through his rookie Formula Two season. That means in the coming weeks and months, it can focus on getting the W15 car in a good place instead of being distracted by ‘silly season’ shifts in the driver market.
Russell echoed Wolff’s message about looking inward, noting the uncertainty about how Mercedes might compare to its immediate rivals. “This is the time of the year where everybody’s sat in anticipation,” Russell said. “But all you can do is look at yourself in the mirror, maximize everything you can do, keep on working, don’t worry about the rest. I’ve got faith it will come.”
Given the importance of 2026, when F1’s car design rules will be overhauled once again, this season realistically marks Mercedes’ final chance under these regulations — and, importantly, its final chance with Hamilton — to get things right.
“That is what we would like to achieve, to give a car to Lewis and George that they enjoy driving, and not as difficult as the previous years,” Wolff said. “Hopefully in Bahrain in a week’s time, we will have more good feedback than bad.”
(Lead image of the W15 at Silverstone: Courtesy of Mercedes)
Source link
credite