Mercedes has disclosed that it achieved the aim to win multiple races in the 2024 Formula 1 season earlier than expected through accomplishing “ambitious targets”.
The German marque endured an arduous opening to the campaign as it encountered unexpected balance complications with a revised package in the opening races.
However, Mercedes has since unlocked the W15’s inherent potential with an aggressive development plan culminating in five successive podiums, including two wins.
Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have concurred in recent weeks how a vast improvement has come with the car becoming easier to handle in recent rounds.
But Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin has claimed the team’s aspiration to be at the sharp end remained unchanged despite its sluggish start.
“I wouldn’t say we’ve been surprised by it,” he said on the turnaround. “We set ourselves some very ambitious performance targets to make sure we were competitive.
“Competitive enough to qualify on pole and win races by the end of the year. And then we put in some ambitious plans to sort of meet that in stages with various updates.
“What has been brilliant to see is just how well the whole organisation has responded to that challenge to try and get us back towards the front. And what we have done has delivered.
“It’s nice when you’re in a situation where all your update kits, all the mechanical changes that we’ve made to the car have done what we hoped for.
“And it’s reassuring that we’re sort of seeing that slow and steady move back towards the front.”
Shovlin has revealed that Mercedes will continue to bring developments across the season as it endeavours to maintain its recent momentum to land more victories.
“Well, we’re flat out developing it,” Shovlin added regarding what’s to come on the W15.
“You don’t know what you’re going to be able to bring right to the end of the year because you haven’t done that work. But there’s more of what we’ve been doing.
“We’ll be coming over the next few races, drip-feeding it in more than going for big packages.
“But the mid-term future is quite exciting still. Lots of areas that we’re working on and hopefully those will come through and bring us the lap time that we hope.”
The Briton, who has been with the team since it was known as Honda, has explained how Mercedes’ enhanced pace hasn’t emanated from aerodynamic gains alone.
“We’ve been working on the mechanical package as well,” he added.
“We’re trying to focus on every area that delivers performance because you need your wind tunnel to be delivering.
But it’s only so hard you can make that work. Some of the differentiating steps are when you can bring a package that isn’t just the aero development that everyone’s trying to do.
So, we’ve made good gains there. And it’s a reflection that the whole team’s working well together.
“All the different functions of performance are all trying to work together to make sure that we can bring updates that do deliver what we need.”
