Mercedes F1 Eyes Future: Testing Path to W16 Success

Mercedes F1 leverages final races to refine W16 with targeted testing, adjustments, and car comparisons, all geared for 2025 competitiveness.

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes F1’s Track Engineering Director, explains following Toto Wolff’s comments (read here) how he sees the remainder of 2024 as a valuable opportunity for experimenting with the Mercedes W16, with no further major upgrades planned for the current W15.

Mercedes F1 is almost certain to finish fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, currently 146 points behind third-place Red Bull and 280 points ahead of fifth-place Aston Martin before this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

“It’s certainly a good opportunity for us to do a bit more experimentation during race weekends, but the main priority for us is ensuring we’ve gathered the crucial insights before the 2025 season.”

“We’re not bringing any further major updates to the car. We may have some test elements, a few small bodywork pieces under review, but again, this will be within the scope of learning for the future.”

“We’ll have plenty of opportunities for adjustments, plenty of chances to use both cars to compare different approaches, and hopefully, in the upcoming races, we can simply build on what we’ve already learned this season.”

Mercedes introduced a significant upgrade package on the W15 at the recent United States Grand Prix, but an accident involving George Russell in FP2 in Mexico forced him to revert to the Miami GP floor specification from early May while teammate Lewis Hamilton ran the upgraded car.

When asked if the forced comparison between the old and new floors was beneficial for Mercedes in Mexico, Shovlin said, “We have useful data, and what we’ve seen so far with the upgrade kit is that it delivers the performance we expect.”

“In terms of loads we measure and pressures on the aerodynamic surfaces, everything seems to be working well.”

“We had hoped both cars would be running in clear air, but that wasn’t really the case in the race, with various battles and incidents. Lewis had a quick start, passing George, but struggled with balance in the first stint. We corrected that for the second stint, but then he was behind George, who had a front-wing issue.”

“Both cars spent much of the race in traffic, which affects our analysis. But from what we’ve gathered, the Austin upgrade is helpful and operates more or less as expected.”

“We’ll continue our learning in Brazil and hope for clean laps and smooth operation with these developments.”