For Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton, 2023 was a season to forget. Although they beat Ferrari in a close battle for second place in the constructors’ world championship, the combination, which was used to success, was not able to celebrate a race victory.
To end the dry spell in 2024, Mercedes has already announced a new vehicle concept and Lewis Hamilton is also doing everything he can to ensure that the Mercedes is a success for 2024: “I’m in the factory much more often now, have meetings with all the department heads and try to to motivate and encourage them all.”
“As you can imagine, everyone is disappointed and demoralized after this season. So I talk to them, show them where we need to improve and what direction we need to go in. I just try to help them be positive and to say we can do it. I also looked closely at the other vehicles and asked a lot of questions, just to stimulate ideas.”
Mercedes on a zig-zag course for a long time
“Ultimately, I have to let them do their job. At the beginning of the season we didn’t have a north star to guide our development. We kind of ran in zig-zags to find out in which direction the journey should go.”
“Every now and then we came across something positive and thought: ‘That’s it!’ But then it quickly goes in the other direction, which is normal. The objective always changes.”
According to Hamilton, Mercedes must use the winter break as best as possible to close the gap to the top and James Allison, technical director at Mercedes, also calls on his team to do better: “It’s a new season and we have to Make sure you get out of the starting blocks well.”
Drivers are now in the factory more often
“The car will be completely new and it is doubly important that the vehicle is good for 2024. The new rules for 2026 are slowly casting their shadow on us and we have to build the corresponding car as early as 2025. The car from 2025 will therefore be closely related “It will be similar to the 2024 car. So we have to focus on developing a car that can be competitive in both world championships by 2026.”
To achieve this, according to Allison, Mercedes has increasingly involved the drivers in vehicle development at home in the factory: “Of course the drivers are most valuable to you on the race weekends, simply because that’s where you spend the most time together. However, it is very difficult environment to work with because you’re under constant pressure to do well.”
“At home in the factory you can approach things more calmly and objectively and that has proven to be extremely valuable. This makes it much easier for us to identify the problems and possible potential in the vehicle and to ensure that everything works as we imagine it to .”
Great anticipation for the new season
With the new vehicle, Mercedes will say goodbye to the size zero concept of side pods. This innovative but ultimately unsuccessful design was created under the responsibility of Mike Eliott, with whom Allison swapped roles within the team before the 2023 season.
When asked whether this was the right decision, Allison responded evasively: “Only time will tell. We have a pretty clear idea of what we want to do with the car.”
“Even though we didn’t make the same leap as McLaren last season, we still got a clear idea during the season of the areas in which we need to improve. That’s what makes the coming season so exciting for us and the current development phase so exciting.”
“If you build a good vehicle, it doesn’t take long to unlock its full potential.” Lewis Hamilton will definitely be happy to hear that.