Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have claimed back-to-back victories for Mercedes in Austria and Britain. This is a tremendous boost for the Silver Arrows, who spent the first two years with these ground-effect cars on the defensive. For the remainder of 2024, James Allison and his technical team have scheduled an aggressive development plan.
The last eighteen months have been a learning period for Mercedes. Undoing the mistakes made in 2022 and the pre-season of 2023 was a painful but essential process at the Brackley factory.
By re-appointing James Allison last year, the team committed to a new aerodynamic philosophy. After a tricky start to the year, Mercedes found their silver bullet in Monaco – with a new configuration to the W15 that correlated accurately with the wind tunnel data.
Since then, the German constructor has gone from strength to strength. This is primarily because the team’s upgrades are working as they were designed to. As recently as twelve months ago, this was not the case.
There is an important distinction between theoretical downforce and usable downforce. In previous years, the theoretical downforce found in the Mercedes wind tunnel did not translate into usable downforce on track – due to porpoising, amongst other issues.
As a result, the major adjustment at Brackley has been to chase downforce without jeopardising aerodynamic stability.

2024 British Grand Prix, Sunday – LAT Images
Mercedes have finally found the sweet spot
However, this problem is now firmly in the past. James Allison’s sights are firmly set on the future, revealing a few weeks ago that upgrades will arrive at a rapid rate:
“Our challenge is just to keep those upgrades arriving at a pace that the others cannot keep up with.
“In doing that, [we are] just bullying our car to the front – by virtue of the effort made by everybody here [in the factory] over the coming weeks and months.”
Mercedes are not the only team with scheduled upgrades for the next few events. Christian Horner confirmed last weekend that improvements will arrive to the RB20 in Hungary. These updates are essential for Red Bull, who have lost ground in the development war this year.
In any case, unlike previous years, Toto Wolff’s personnel are not restricted by a fundamental lack of understanding with this generation of cars.
The Silver Arrows now have the necessary foundations to move forward with purpose. Whilst cooler conditions still favour the W15, the car produced in Brackley has proven increasingly resilient across different conditions.
Provided Mercedes can maintain their current trajectory, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic for the future.