Allison: With a little luck we can qualify for the podium

Mercedes technical director James Allison hopes his team can perform better in the Italian leg of the season than in Zanfdort, where George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished only 7th and 8th.

James Ellison: “Let’s hope our pace returns to the level it was before the summer break, and doesn’t remain the same as at Zandvoort, where it left a lot to be desired.

An interesting weekend awaits us in Monza, as the track surface has been completely replaced, new asphalt has been laid along the entire length of the circle and Pirelli has prepared the softest rubber compounds for this circuit.

New asphalt provides excellent grip, but there is a risk of rubber granulation – essentially what happens when the surface of the tire sticks to the asphalt, but literally physically breaks when the load is too high. This is something you will need to pay attention to.

I think we will be able to find the optimal settings for the car, and at the same time we will find out: the new aerodynamics that we presented at Zandvoort caused us problems or helped us. And if we are a bit lucky and the weekend in Monza goes smoothly, we can claim a podium or an even higher result – I hope so. But we will see how it goes.”

Ellison recalled the difficulties the team faced in the Netherlands: “You can’t oversimplify things and say the circuit wasn’t right for our car. Whether the weekend goes well or not depends on a lot of factors. Everything has to be done as well as possible so that the car can fully show the pace it is really capable of.

Before the championship break we were able to achieve good results at almost all circuits, but at Zandvoort we were unable to find the right approach for the W15 due to the bad weather on Friday and the decisions taken that evening.

Small mistakes in choosing the settings led to the fact that we dropped to the average level, but at the same time we still did not understand to what extent this was influenced by the work of the new bottom… However, the pace of the car depends not only on the amount of downforce generated by the aerodynamic body kit

It is important to achieve the optimum balance required for cornering, so that the car behaves correctly both at high speeds and at relatively low speeds. In Zandvoort our car was not well balanced, which meant there was no pace.”