Mercedes F1 Experimental Phase - F1's Struggle 2024

Mercedes F1 faces ongoing challenges with the W15, prompting a return to experimental tactics reminiscent of 2022 efforts.

In 2022, Mercedes F1 managed to emerge from its challenging season by experimenting every weekend. This task was entrusted to Lewis Hamilton, who leveraged his experience to aid the team by sacrificing the beginnings of his weekends to test radical adjustments in an attempt to discover solutions to the W13’s issues.

Two years on, the Brackley team appears to be at a similar juncture, according to statements from its director Toto Wolff. The team is struggling to understand its W15, and the Austrian has revealed that a return to such experimentation is necessary, which is not exactly comforting.

“I think we’re reaching a point where we probably need to experiment at every race,” Wolff stated. “Not just on Fridays, not just with Lewis, because our performance seems to deteriorate over the course of the weekend.”

“We’re good on Friday, then we’re good in some Saturday sessions, but the more grip we have, the faster we go, the more we hit the car’s performance ceiling, and our data shows that this isn’t the limit.”

Wolff, in any case, praises the work of his drivers, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, for making progress: “I haven’t lost the feeling that there’s a good car, not a diva, beneath the issues. I think the drivers are great in this setup because Lewis is as good as one can be.”

“He’s in a situation where, on one hand, it’s very frustrating to see that we’re not making it. On the other hand, if you look at Ferrari on the other side, you’ll see that what’s happening there is very good, but it’s not his priority today. George is a fighter, he’s holding on, and he knows this is his place, so we need to fix this.”