Much of the early season optimism has visibly drained from the Mercedes trackside F1 team following their woeful start to the 2024 season. Neither driver has finished higher than 5th place and in Australia the team recorded a shock double DNF.

Lewis Hamilton suffered an engine failure on lap sixteen and George Russell while hunting down Fernando Alonso in the closing laps, misjudged his braking and a wash of dirty air sent the young British driver hurtling into the barrier.

 

 

 

Wolff wants “to punch myself on the nose”

Team principal Toto Wolff said after the race, “I would be lying if I would say at any moment I feel positive about the situation and optimistic,” he continued. “But you just need to overcome the negative thoughts and say ‘we will turn this around’. Today it feels very, very brutal.”

The one third shareholder in the team reflected back a year to the previous Melbourne race where Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had a DNF and Carlos Sainz after a penalty was relegated outside the top 10.

“McLaren was 17th, 18th, 19th, and [now] they are 40 seconds ahead of us. Obviously, on one side, I want to punch myself on the nose. On the other side, it is also a testimony that when you get things right, you can turn it around pretty quickly and we’ve just got to continue to believe.

“But at the moment, it’s a very tough time,” Wolff admitted.

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Hamilton ‘lost his way’

Having lost their talisman driver to Ferrari next year, Mercedes feel at present as though they are down and almost out. James Allison replacing Mike Elliot as technical director has not had any visible effect as of yet, all this as other key individuals, part of Mercedes’ success story, are leaving for pastures new.

Without the Australian stewards handing Fernando a penalty for ‘brake testing’ George Russell, Mercedes would now be languishing in fifth place in the constructors’ title race behind Aston Martin. Lewis seems to have lost hope and is currently 5-0 in qualifying to his team mate since the race in Las Vegas.

Hamilton was a mere 0.036 seconds away from being knocked out in Q2 Jeddah by rookie Oli Bearman and then did fail to make the top ten shootout in Melbourne. Mercedes can no longer rely on their ‘forever’ mascot to pull them through the tough times ahead.

One of the difficulties the team are finding is because they built a whole new platform when replacing the W14, the data the team holds from last season about each circuit, is less helpful when int comes to setting up the car.

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Mercedes flounder on set up

Each team arrives at a Grand Prix venue having simulated their car on track and decided on a baseline setup. If all goes to plan, the setup gets ever more honed over the practice sessions until the final tweaks are made during qualifying.

Yet this has not been how Mercedes have been operating this year. Even in practice three in Australia, Hamilton was trying big set up and wing changes in the hope of finding the magic handling silver bullet. This merely serves to destabilise the team  which makes correct decision making ever more difficult.

Whilst facing a long unsuccessful trek around the world as his Mercedes swan song plays out, Hamilton will have one eye on the progress Ferrari appear to be making under the leadership of Fred Vasseur. Lewis may even find it funny when he remembers Toto’s parting shot after being told his star of the past is off to Italy. “You’ve got to really picture our rear wing because that’s the perspective you’re going to have,” Wolff had joked with Hamilton.

At present there’s an element of prophetic truth to Toto’s observation given Hamilton would have been lapped by Carlos Sainz last weekend had his engine not failed first.

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A pattern is emerging

Even though Mercedes have been baffled by the lack of correlation between their simulation tools and on track performance of the W15, there are pattern’s appearing which should help guide the technical team at Brackley in the right direction.

In the raised temperatures of Saudi Arabia, it became patently clear the W15 coped poorly, lacking grip and power in the high speed sections of the track. This resulted in bouncing and according to technical director Allison, a trend has now emerged where the team is less competitive in warmer conditions.

In Australia, both cars ran well in Free Practice Three, but faded dramatically as the qualifying session began in the water evening air. 

“We are starting to see a pattern emerge that most weekends we have a period in the weekend where we are feeling confident about the car, but then in the paying sessions, in qualifying and the race, that slips through our fingers,” Allison explained.

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W15 doesn’t like the warm

“If we were trying to draw that pattern together then probably the strongest correlation that we can make at the moment, is that our competitiveness drops when the track is warm, when the day is at its warmest and therefore the tyre temperatures rise with those of the track.

“That gives us some clues about what we need to do as we move forward from here. From FP3 to qualifying in Melbourne there was not a set-up change.”

Whilst encouraging to hear some of the brightest minds in the business are onto finding and solving Mercedes difficulties, if the best data the team have after three long race weekends is ‘the car runs worse when its warm’, then its a long season ahead for all concerned.

Allison reasons: “If you’ve identified correctly an accurate assessment of why our competitiveness waxes and wanes, then you can work into the weekend a programme that is dedicated towards trying to move the temperature and the temperature balance front to rear in your favour and using all the conventional set-up tools on the car.”

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Big new upgrade required

But of course only so much can be gained from optimising the setup – if the platform design itself is flawed again – something Allison recognises.

“If you conclude having exhausted the degrees of freedom that you have available to you in set-up terms that you still need to go further, well then that gets harder at that point.

“That will be that there are underlying characteristics in say the aerodynamic map that you’ve engineered or the suspension characteristic that is aggravating that particular feature.

“In order to make it really heal up nicely, then you would have to change those underlying features. It can be either quick and dirty, or a little more involved and a bit more complicated.”

All this is well and good but it sounds like Allison is paving the way for the conclusion that the design of the W15 is fundamentally bad, and all the setup changes will result in Mercedes needing to in the words of Wolff – ‘do a McLaren’ and bring a big upgrade six or seven races into the year.

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Few names in the world of motorsport are as revered as that of Sebastian Vettel. The former Formula 1 champion, renowned for his fierce driving skills and on-track strategy, has recently sparked talk of a possible return to the sport of F1.

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