Mercedes chief reveals they've made “lot of progress with next year’s car” ahead of 2024 season 

Mercedes technical director James Allison believes the team has made some significant progress with the W15 ahead of the 2024 season.

Mercedes won eight consecutive world titles between 2014 and 2021. However, recent seasons have seen the German outfit be a shadow of their former self as they continue to chase the dominant Red Bull.

Much of their recent setbacks could be attributed to the W13 and W14 models of the car, which featured the ill-fated "zero sidepods" concept, a venture that turned out to be a substantial failure. The Brackley-based outfit, in a bid to challenge for titles once again, re-appointed Allison as the team's technical director in April this year.

When asked in a recent episode of the Performance People podcast if Mercedes can win the World Championship in 2024, Allison responded (h/t GrandPrix247):

"I don't know. If you look at the long march of F1 history, then the stats are against us. 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."

After recognizing the historical challenges, Allison highlighted the team's strength in depth. He said:

"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."

Mercedes finished second in the Constructors' Championship this season — just three points ahead of third-placed Ferrari.

---

James Allison explains the mentality he desires inside the Mercedes camp

Despite the recent setbacks, the eight-time Constructors' Champions are firm on bouncing back strongly and returning to their former glory.

James Allison dwelled into the mental fortitude that is required to make a comeback of this magnitude, cautioning against a backward-looking mentality. He said:

"If you have that sort of backward-looking mentality it can be quite depressing and likely to prolong the downturn. The sooner, on the other hand, you’re able to say ‘we are where we are, let’s not pretend we are deserving of winning at the moment," he said, via the aforementioned source.

"Let’s figure out what we need to do so we are deserving of winning and let’s enjoy that transition from what we deserve to be right now and what we’re going to be in the future", he added.

Acknowledging the pain of the downturn, he asserted that it's also a thrilling process. He said:

"As much as maybe the outside world might imagine this is deeply painful internally, and on one level it is, it’s also really exciting."