F1 News: Mercedes Targets Red Bull In 2024 Comeback - "Possible To Do"

James Allison offers reasons to believe that the F1 grid will be closer at the top.

Reviewing the statistics since 2022, James Allison, the Technical Director at Mercedes, analyzes the data and anticipates that Red Bull will be more attainable to compete this season, suggesting that its display of absolute dominance is likely coming to a conclusion.

Key Takeaways:

• James Allison, Mercedes Technical Director, predicts increased competition with Red Bull in the 2024 season, suggesting a potential shift from Red Bull's past dominance.
• Analyzing Q1 timings from the previous year, Allison predicts a closely contested front grid despite Red Bull's 2024 improvements.
• A trend of grid compression since 2022 indicates a more competitive season. Operational factors and addressing previous shortcomings are crucial for success, with Mercedes launching the new W15 car to enhance performance.

Allison examined the Q1 timings of the previous year to illustrate the proximity of each team to Red Bull. Despite the enhancements made by the Milton Keynes outfit to their title contender for 2024, there is a possibility that other teams have fine-tuned their cars this season, resulting in a closely contested grid at the front.

Looking at the bigger picture and the trend that has been ensuing since the inception of the ground effect era in 2022, Allison explained:

“There is just a little bit that nestles in the back of our heads, which is that the rules themselves have a much more clear upper boundary to them in the amount of lap time these cars are capable of producing.

“Much more than the older generation of cars, which the more love you gave them and the more labour you put into them, the faster they got, seemingly without end.

“If you look at last year, you see, from the start of the season to the end of the season — although Red Bull’s dominance was near complete, and they didn’t look vulnerable even to the last race of the year — if you look at the bigger picture, this is a grid that is gradually compressing, and all the cars in Q1 were sort of squashed down within one second of each other.

“And that’s not coincidence. It’s a trend that has happened from 2022, continued in 2023, and I think will continue to show itself in 2024, because the gains are getting more and more asymptotic.

“I think therefore, that in addition to us I hope having worked well, my guess is it’s going to be relatively busier near the top of the grid this time around.

“If we are good enough to be in that fight, then operational things — driver excellence, the reliability of the car, the skill of the crews that service it — all of those things start to potentially become the differentiating factors.

“Hopefully there too we’ve given a good wash and brush-up to performances that were sometimes less than stellar last year.”

Game Changer W15? 

The technical director revealed that Mercedes has sorted out the obvious and the not-so-obvious imperfections on its car with the launch of the W15 last week. He added:

“I think Toto drew the comparison between climbing Everest and the challenge we have in front of us.

“That’s a fairly apt comparison, because Everest is the sternest of challenges, but it is nevertheless, something that is possible to do.

“I think that’s how we’re taking this, as something which is where we are absolutely a challenger rather than a favourite.

“But nevertheless, we hope we’ve done a good job with the new car — we hope we’ve addressed some of the shortcomings that were so publicly on display with it last year.”

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