“It looks like things are going in the right direction”: Mercedes chief believes the Silver Arrows have finally made a breakthrough in their car

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin believes that the team are finally going in the right direction with their concept.

The German team had to make several adjustments in the middle of the 2023 season to change their zero sidepods concept to gain some performance. After some initial hurdles, the new concept has yielded more consistent results which has taken the former world champions to P2 in the championship.

Speaking with Motorsport Magazine, the Mercedes F1 engineering director said:

“We are now coming to a stage where the correlation is good. We are beginning to understand the effects of change. It looks like things are going in the right direction. We make parts and we can use them immediately in the race. We're not constantly swapping the update packages and guess if we did the right thing.”

“The change in the sidepods is paying off, even if you don't always see it in the development race. It's hardly possible to measure progress because all teams are progressing so quickly.”

Mercedes F1 technical director speaks about the goal of the team

Mercedes technical director James Allison stated that the team's goal in the 2023 season is to finish P2 behind Red Bull before coming out stronger in the 2024 season.

Allison said, as per Motorsportweek, Allison:

“At the start of the year, we were fourth quickest, looking at our customers who were beating us, and that was frustrating. Ferrari were beating us too. Little by little, we are gradually putting them behind us. Everything is playing a part in it."

"From strategy to engineering, reliability, manufacturing, and the drivers who are metronomic in their ability to turn half-opportunities into points. Although it falls short of our initial aims, securing P2 nevertheless really matters for all of us. Especially in the second half of the season when the tone will be shifting to the W15."

Mercedes CTO Mike Elliott added:

“Our aim is to win championships. Unfortunately, we are not in that position this year. But we want to be next year. We’ve got to get that balance right between getting all the learnings we can with our current car and trying to put most of our effort into next year’s car."

Mercedes are behind Aston Martin, Ferrari, and McLaren in the championship standings. They will hope to extend their gap in the second half of the season to cement their spot in the championship.