Lewis Hamilton has called for 'major adjustments', so Mercedes is addressing 'basic' issues ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
Following a difficult start to the 2024 Formula 1 season for Mercedes in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, watch the Australian Grand Prix live on Sky Sports F1 starting on Friday. The event on Sunday will begin at 4 a.m.
Following a dismal start to the 2024 Formula 1 season, Mercedes has acknowledged that they are working on fixing "fundamental issues" with its W15 car.
Mercedes, who had hoped to fight Red Bull as close as possible going into the new season, was unable to position a car in the top four in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, as teammate Max Verstappen guided Sergio Perez to impressive one-two finishes.
After placing eighth in Jeddah, Lewis Hamilton, who has been surpassed by teammate George Russell in both races, stated that "big changes" are still needed in addition to the overhaul that was supposed to have improved their underperforming cars from the previous two years.
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin discussed how practice's setup experiments with the W15 failed to yield meaningful improvement in the team's online race debrief.
"We started to converge back in the general direction of where we came from arriving there," Shovlin stated.
"However, the lesson here is that changes allow you to observe distinctions. As a result, you may observe how one car performs on a run-to-run basis.
"We may also compare the two cars' overall performance, but both the qualifying and race constraints were essentially the same for both vehicles.
Thus, it's informing you that there is a significant difference—not just a little adjustment of camber, a spring, or a bar here and there. We must investigate and comprehend something more fundamental."
The season starts again on Friday in Melbourne with the Australian Grand Prix after the two opening races back-to-back.
Shovlin is optimistic that Mercedes may be able to locate some improvements with additional time to prepare.
"There's definitely data that we're picking through from Jeddah," he stated. We're also examining data from the Bahrain test and race, and we'll devise a strategy for our approach to free practice in Melbourne.
However, it isn't only predicated on our actions in Jeddah. The departments of vehicle dynamics and aerodynamics are working very hard.
"We're trying to design some experiments there that will hopefully give us a direction that's good for performance."
Mercedes should be concerned since the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne bears some resemblance to Jeddah, the race when their shortcomings were most exposed.
"There was some imbalance," Shovlin continued. "There isn't much distance between the walls and those extremely sharp turns. Thus, in situations where the driver exudes a great deal of confidence, we were frequently forced to oversteer if they truly applied too much pressure on the tires.
"It is easy to picture how uncomfortable that is for the drivers. That now played a part in both the race and the qualifying. We were also having some trouble with the bouncing during qualifying. That was less of an issue during the race now. The car has more fuel in it. You've slowed down a little. And it didn't seem to be as much of a problem after all.
"The main issue is that we don't actually have enough leverage there. Given that Melbourne's corners are comparable in character, that is one of the areas we are putting a lot of effort into this week. Thus, we're working very hard to try to figure out why we didn't appear to be able to hold the same grasp as some of our direct rivals."
Mercedes' lack of straight-line speed has been one of their main issues since the F1 regulations were changed for 2022, despite the fact that they had one of the fastest cars in Jeddah.
Shovlin is optimistic that the group won't have to forfeit this progress in order to improve other areas of performance.
"We were actually one of the fastest cars, if not the fastest car in a straight line," he stated. We were therefore mostly at a light wing level.
"And to try to recoup some of that time in sector one, we could try slowing down in sectors two and three. However, instead of merely loading the car with extra downforce and paying the price on the straightaways, we'd like to preserve it and figure out how to try to improve sector one."
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