Mercedes Technical Director James Allison insists the team is aiming to challenge for the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship with a “pretty ambitious program” on its new car.
After winning an unmatched eight straight titles between 2014-20, Mercedes has struggled with the latest ground effect machinery and ended the past season without a win for the first time since 2011.
Despite beating Ferrari to second place in the Constructors Championship, Mercedes wound up a huge 454 points behind Red Bull, who emerged victorious in all but one round.
Having landed a breakthrough win at the end of last year, the German marque opted to retain its contentious ‘zeropod’ design solution for the start of the latest campaign.
But while it reversed that with several revisions in Monaco, Mercedes remained limited by the foundations of the launch-spec W14 under the restrictions of the cost cap.
After team boss Toto Wolff established it will “change every component” over the winter, Allison revealed on the Performance People podcast that Mercedes has already made sizeable progress with its W15 challenger.
When asked whether it was viable to expect Mercedes to be back in contention for regular wins as early as next year, Allison said: “‘I don’t know,’ is the answer to that.
“I hope that we have put in place enough of a program of work that we have put ourselves in with a shout to be back to [challenging].
“‘Winning ways’, does that mean winning a race? Does that mean winning a Championship?
“In my head, it’s only ever about Championships. That’s what Formula 1 is: it’s a Constructors’ and a Drivers’ Championship.
“I hope that we have done enough to give ourselves a shout of being in a Championship fight in both Championships.
“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 that we have set ourselves.
“But we have nevertheless set a pretty ambitious program. 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 or not, 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.”
Allison, who returned to his current position earlier this year, admitted that Mercedes suffered from a drop in confidence following its surprise slump from the outset in 2022.
Expanding on the Brackley squad’s problems since the regulations were overhauled, Allison reveals how the unexpected fall from grace took its toll on the entire operation.
“When a team has been, as we were, on a very high plateau for quite a large number of years, for quite a long period of time, and then takes a dip, it’s very disorientating,” he added.
“It’s very unpleasant to suddenly feel that what you had previously felt about yourselves as a group, the foundations of that have been loosened by the reality of the stopwatch and being beaten by other teams.
“It shakes the confidence of an organisation and it also puts a lot of very short-term pressures on a company that’s been used to thinking further ahead.”
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