Mercedes’ transition from a “terrible” Formula 1 chassis to winning races, according to Lewis Hamilton, was made possible by strategically placing downforce. Coming into the season, Mercedes was certain that the W15’s stubborn traits had been eliminated, having been a hindrance to its predecessor.
But Mercedes suffered a blow in the early races due to a car that was unreliable and difficult for the team to maximize at different corner speeds. However, Mercedes has since rocketed back into regular contention at the pointy end with to an aggressive development strategy that included a redesigned front wing in Monaco.
After leading a front-row lockout with his teammate at Silverstone, George Russell took advantage of the leaders crashing to break the marque’s losing run in Austria. Russell, however, was devastated when a water leak prevented him from competing, while Hamilton defeated Mercedes’ opponents to end his arduous 945-day winless streak. Mercedes’ recent comeback can be attributed in large part to having downforce where it was needed, as Hamilton, who will join Ferrari in 2025, has indicated.
Hamilton responded, “Everywhere,” when asked where the Mercedes car had changed from earlier in the season. Simply put, everything is better now. For instance, the car felt awful leaving Bahrain, despite our progress in optimizing the aero package and dialing in the vehicle. “Adding performance has never been an issue for this team. “However, a major concern with this generation of cars has always been where they put that performance and where the downforce is coming from.
That being said, the engineers at the firm have now performed a fantastic job.
Russell asserted that Mercedes had overcompensated in an effort to correct the W14’s inadequacies, citing the team’s ongoing problems earlier in the season. Russell attributes “small changes” to Mercedes’ immense potential, even though the company’s problems under the existing regulations stand in stark contrast to Mercedes’s restored competitiveness. Russell went on, “I think we’ve made some small changes, which have had a big impact.”
Since the beginning of the year, we have known that this car’s baseline is far superior to that of prior models. However, we switched from having an oversteering car to an understeering one this year. We’ve merely backed off now and discovered the ideal balance. “The lap time just really snowballs positively when the tyre temperatures are in the right window and the balance is in a good place.” “The lap time has significantly changed, but there hasn’t been a significant change.”