Mercedes Technical Director James Allison says its floor upgrade for the United States Grand Prix will demonstrate whether the team is “on the right track” for 2024.
Mercedes elected to retain its ‘zeropod’ concept for this year but abandoned the philosophy with the introduction of a revised car at the Monaco Grand Prix in May.
However, the German marque admits it has continued to be restricted by the architecture of its launch-spec car, remaining winless.
Lewis Hamilton declared last month that Mercedes must have its “greatest six months of development” ever to catch up to Red Bull, who have won all but one race in 2023.
Although Mercedes currently sits second in the Constructors’ Championship, the Brackley squad has regularly lagged behind either of its two engine customers this year.
Aston Martin’s early momentum has fizzled out, but McLaren has come on strong since a raft of mid-season upgrades, registering double podiums in the last two rounds.
While Allison accepts that Mercedes hasn’t made the same progress this year as its rivals, he’s optimistic that the team have paved a path towards correcting its flaws.
“This championship, while we haven’t made the really impressive progress that say McLaren have, we have nevertheless been charting a path through the season that gives us a very clear idea of what we need to put right,” Allison said in Qatar.
“So that makes next year’s fun, very exciting to look forward to and this period actually of the year extremely enjoyable.”
Allison returned to a more hands-on position within the Mercedes set-up earlier this year, swapping roles with Mike Elliott, who moved into a Chief Technical Officer position.
Mercedes is set to unveil a floor upgrade to the next round in Austin as it bids to protect the 23-point advantage it currently retains over Ferrari in the Constructors’ standings.
However, Allison insists that the upgrade will be brought to determine if the team is on the right path to returning to the front rather than searching for instant performance gains.
“Major upgrade, we’re bringing a modified floor, if that’s what you mean,” he disclosed. “And hopefully it will give us a bit of lap time, always a benefit.
“But it is mostly a useful thing because it’s a bellwether for whether we’re on the right track. But in lap time terms it will be small.”
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