Mike Elliott: This year has taught us a lot

At the end of the year, Mercedes summed up the results of a difficult season in which the team found itself in an unusual position to catch up. Technical director Mike Elliott explained how the problems started and how to solve them.

Mike Elliott: “During the off-season we were finishing up the car and it seemed to us that everything was going well. But when we started winter testing, it turned out that we had serious problems, and that made everyone very upset.

I believe the aerodynamics of these machines are such that they work effectively with very low ground clearance, and in the course of aerodynamic studies we found that reducing it allowed it to add very significantly. Looking back, we have to admit: we overdid it, went in this direction, and this was a lesson for us.

We usually start the season with a pretty good knowledge of the speeds to expect compared to last year’s car. Although of course we cannot know what the opponents are doing, we can imagine at what level we ourselves are. But as far as I can remember, it was the first season in a long time that it all started with a problem we couldn’t foresee.

We saw that the problem with the build-up of the car at high speeds was with different teams, but it manifested itself in different degrees. Our case was one of the worst, which made life very difficult for us. I only then became technical director of the team and was in an unenviable position, but I was happy with how we were able to react.

The team rallied, tried to address the issues, and made progress. But at the beginning of the season we were in a really difficult position. No matter how good our team is, it is in difficult times that you really learn and I hope that this will continue in the coming years.

Arriving in Bahrain for the first race of the season, it turned out that we were not that far behind the leaders in terms of speed, but this was preceded by numerous experiments in the wind tunnel and the use of CFD technologies, trying to understand that we understood the causes of the problems well. Only then could progress be expected. As a result, we were able to take a step forward in the Barcelona stage.

Subsequently, we managed to noticeably add speed and reduce the manifestation of build-up. In Barcelona we were able to work with the car for the first time and adjust the ground clearance as we would like. But to achieve this, a lot of aerodynamic efficiency had to be sacrificed. But in the following races other problems with the car came up, because we wanted to make the clearance quite small, and it took us a while to solve everything.

This was not due to the fact that we did not understand the essence of the problems, but time was needed to make changes in the design of the machine, which were necessary for the conclusions we reached.

With every improvement made we were able to take a small step in the right direction, and it wasn’t until Austin that we got a car that still didn’t beat the Red Bull in terms of speed, but we were already in a more or less normal position, when it was possible to say that the direction of work was chosen correctly. This gave confidence for the future.

As Niki Lauda said, failure teaches a lot, not victory. The past year has really taught us a lot. After George Russell’s victory in Brazil, it was very interesting for me to observe the team’s reaction – it looked like we won the world championship, although we only won one race. But it was an affirmation of a passionate desire to succeed, a desire to return to the top.”