Mercedes introduced a number of improvements this season, but their effectiveness was diluted by the characteristics of the W15 car.
The Miami GP was a fairly low-key event for Mercedes, in line with most of their 2024 season. Lewis Hamilton will be relatively happy with his performance, putting Sergio Perez under pressure for much of the latter part of the race. However, given the upgrades that were introduced in Florida, the pace was disappointing. Seeing the winning team, McLaren, will only bring embarrassment
For the past few years, mid-season development at Brackley has failed to hit the mark. In 2022 and early 2023, commitment to the wrong philosophy of zero side pages was described as the culprit for their struggles. With that said, there can be no such excuses in 2024. An all-new aerodynamic platform has been introduced for this season. In theory, this new philosophy should have been the missing link for James Allison and his technical team.
Unfortunately for the Silver Arrows, that was not the case. Not only do their upgrades fail to generate significant performance, but their base value is unreliable. The famous story about “experimenting” settings started again in 2024.
Mercedes explains the cause of upgrades that do not work
Racing boss Andrew Shovlin explained why progress at Mercedes has been incremental:
“We’re working very hard on future races to try and improve them,” Shovlin told MotorsportWeek.
“Did it work as expected? That. It seems to deliver the performance we were hoping for from a floor.”
“Currently, the problem is that everyone else is developing their cars. You’ve seen McLaren with a big package, and it looks like they’ve moved forward.”
“Also, the handling issues drivers have to contend with make it hard to see all that performance as a real step forward…”
“The car can behave very differently from session to session.”
Rivals are advancing
