Stats Are Against Mercedes According To New Chief Technical Officer

Monday, 11 December 2023 at 05:00

All the past stats are against Mercedes as the team tried to develop a competitive car going into the 2024 season.

It is a trend in F1 to see different teams dominate the sport. In the early 2000s, it was Ferrari, then it was Renault for a short period of time; after that, it was Red Bull in 2010, and so on.

However, each time a period of dominance passes for a certain team, it takes time before the team can recover for whatever reason.

Ever since Ferrari won its last Constructors' title in 2008, the team has not repeated its success until today. Renault could also not repeat its success ever since 2006.

It took Red Bull eight years to catch up with dominant Mercedes and challenge for the title again. Mercedes, on the other hand, dominated the sport for eight years and fell behind in 2022.

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Now, it has been two years since Mercedes won only one Grand Prix. Silver Arrows lag far behind Red Bull and stand in front of a great challenge to build a competitive car going into 2024.

James Allison, Mercedes's new chief technical officer, said on the Performance People podcast: "If you look at the long march of F1 history, then the stats are against us."

Allison is very much aware of his team's current problem. Mercedes's team principal recently revealed the team plans to change completely for the next season, but to bounce back with a new concept is an ambitious goal.

"Teams do not bounce back from slipping from their previous peak in the length of time we have set ourselves but we have nevertheless set a pretty ambitious programme."

McLaren's team principal, Andrea Stella, mentioned he expects his team will need to make at least 0,5 seconds in pace per lap progress in order to retain its position on the grid, not to mention going forward.

Mercedes has to make at least as big of a step forward as McLaren just to keep up with the competition. On the other hand, the chief technical officer indicated his team already made some progress

"We have quite a lot of strength in depth here and we’ve made quite a lot of progress with next year’s car. Whether it proves sufficient enough, only time will tell, but that’s what I’m hoping for us and I know that all my colleagues and team-mates around me will be hoping for the same."