Mercedes' Vegas Victory Leaves Allison Seeking Answers

James Allison admits frustration over W15’s unpredictable performance, despite a dominant Las Vegas win that caught Mercedes off guard.

James Allison admitted that the performance of the Mercedes W15 at the Las Vegas Grand Prix was partly “frustrating,” with the team not expecting such a dominant display.

Despite an inconsistent second half of the season, the W15 emerged as the best car in Vegas, with George Russell leading from pole to claim his third career victory.

Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, recovered from a disappointing 10th place in qualifying to seal Mercedes’ first one-two finish since the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Russell acknowledged that Mercedes’ dominance in Vegas came as a real surprise, saying, “I don’t know how we were so fast, but I’m riding the wave right now.”

Hamilton added, “Mercedes doesn’t know why we were so fast.”

Allison, Mercedes F1’s Technical Director, thus admitted that it was frustrating.

“My first words at the factory on Monday were, ‘It was brilliant, exhilarating, but also frustrating.’ Frustrating because we didn’t anticipate the pace we had this weekend.”

“And one of the main things in engineering is trying to understand what’s happening with a car, ensuring you understand it and can optimize it, and that involves being able to predict it.”

“We certainly didn’t expect such a dominant performance. There could be many reasons for that.”

“We’ve already mentioned the track temperature, an unusually cold environment, a winter desert race in Las Vegas, but there’s more to it than that.”

“I think the key thing for us is to explore the many possible explanations over the coming week to see if we can turn this frustration into some level of understanding and then use it to our advantage.”