Answering questions from fans after the weekend in Las Vegas, Mercedes technical director James Allison admitted that he and his colleagues in the team’s technical department have not yet understood in detail the reasons why the winning double was achieved.
James Ellison: “At the team meeting in Brackley I started my speech by acknowledging that winning a double is a great achievement but also a bit of a disappointment. We’re disappointed that we didn’t expect to be in Las Vegas so quickly this weekend.
It is always important for an engineer to understand what exactly is happening with the machine, to understand its properties as best as possible, to optimize its behavior and to be able to predict it based on that.
We definitely didn’t expect to clearly dominate. There are many reasons for such results from the weekend – it is clear that the track temperature was at an unusually low level. But there’s more to it than that, and now we have to analyze the different possible explanations in detail and try to figure it all out.
We need to see if understanding can be developed from this sense of some frustration, and then the conclusions we arrive at can be usefully applied in the future.
The hugely important thing in Las Vegas was that George Russell did some much-needed work during the first stint of the race. If Charles Leclerc had managed to stay ahead of him, it remains to be seen how events would have developed later.
Leclerc tried to attack too early, this affected the condition of his tires, and if Ferrari’s pace was at a very high level in the first laps of the race, Charles quickly started to lose it.
What concerned me was that if the Ferrari got in front of George’s car and he then tried to get back into the lead, he too could have used up the life of the front tires. Perhaps he too would have developed granulation, which ruined the whole race for Leclerc. We don’t know.
But it is much more pleasant that George emerged victorious from that duel with his opponent, and we retained the lead. After all, Russell was no longer in danger after that. And he did all the important work to prepare for victory in the first segment. Then on each subsequent lap I increased my lead over the rest of the peloton.
If we talk about Lewis Hamilton, we had a tactics meeting before the start, where we tried to think of possible scenarios for the development of events during the race.
We predicted that George, starting from pole, would be able to keep the lead and win the race, although the chance of this happening was no greater than 50%. In the case of Lewis, who started tenth, we knew he could get to the front, but we predicted he could finish sixth or at most fifth.
But he acted confidently and reached 2nd place, and this shows the following: firstly, he drove very well, and secondly, the car was able to achieve an excellent pace. It’s been a pleasure to see his progress.”
Naturally, Ellison was asked to share his predictions for the upcoming weekend in Qatar.
“I feel a little nervous about giving my opinion about what awaits us in Qatar,” said the Mercedes technical director. – Over the course of the season we have repeatedly seen examples of a kind of vicious circle – I am talking about the interdependence of the balance of the car and the degradation of the rubber. If you can get the chassis balance right, the tires will work effectively. And if the tires work efficiently, you get the feeling that your balance is in order.
The same thing happens, only in reverse, if the balance leaves much to be desired. The tires perform terribly, quickly losing efficiency, causing the balance to deteriorate. In Las Vegas we achieved an excellent balance with the W15 and it was a great weekend.
Regarding Qatar, I would like to say this: there are some encouraging moments. The track is very slippery here, just like in Vegas. Our car handled Turn 3 very well there, but here in Qatar there are many corners of the same type, while there are not many slow parts.
We should be able to set up the car more or less normally, although we have made mistakes before. That is why we are now cautiously optimistic, hoping that we can hold the race in Qatar with confidence.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
