What other cars has Mercedes technical director James Allison designed?

James Allison is currently working as a technical director at Mercedes. However, the British engineer has been working in F1 for quite some time now and has contributed a lot to some of the teams. Since he usually works behind the scenes, not all new fans know about him and his past achievements.

James Allison started his career in F1 by working in the aerodynamic department of the Benetton F1 team in 1991. After five years of gaining initial experience and moving up the ranks, he moved to Ferrari in 2000 as one of the chief car designers.

He, along with several other designers, created some of the best F1 cars in the history of the sport. These cars allowed Ferrari to win five back-to-back world championships from 2000 to 2004.

After the end of the 2004 F1 season, Allison returned to Benetton (by that time, the team was known as Renault F1) as deputy technical director. Once again, he played a vital role in designing. This time, it was the R25 and R26, which helped the team and Fernando Alonso win their two championships in 2005 and 2006.

Though he remained with Renault until 2013, he was unable to create more championship-winning cars as Red Bull gradually picked up pace and started winning championships with Adrian Newey's cars. Other teams also started moving up the ranks and winning championships.

James Allison returned to Ferrari in 2013 and worked as a chassis technical director until 2016, when he moved up to become the technical director. Unfortunately, the team was unable to produce a championship-winning car. He left the Italian outfit after his wife's unfortunate death in July 2016.

After taking a break from the sport for six months, Allison returned to F1 as a technical director at Mercedes in 2017. However, he had no hand in creating the W08 for the 2017 F1 season. His move to Mercedes was fruitful, as he once again started designing cars that were worthy of winning championships. The W09, W10, W11, and W12 were all brilliant cars that won titles for the team from 2018 to 2021.

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Mercedes team boss explains how the team took the wrong path while developing the W14

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff explained how his team was tricked into thinking that the development path they took in the 2022 F1 season could work in 2023 as well. He stated how the car was getting better and better in the latter stages of last season, which tricked them into thinking that it was the right path. In an interview with Motorsport.com, Wolff said:

"It got better and better and better. We were competitive in the American races. We won in Interlagos, we knew that Abu Dhabi [where Mercedes struggled] is a bit different. That was the perfect storm for us. It wasn't good for 2023. We thought we were on the right track and the concept works. But it didn't."

Of course, when Mercedes entered the 2023 F1 season, they quickly realized that their concept and development path were misleading. The W14 was off pace to start the season and battled to give the likes of Red Bull and Aston Martin a run for their money.