James Allison – Syndication Server

Mercedes’ Allison: Red Bull upgrade looks like a ‘downgrade’

Red Bull’s upgrade introduced in Imola looks like it “was a downgrade” that could cost it a lot of time, according to Mercedes’ technical director James Allison. Ferrari and Red Bull both brought new components to the first race of the European …

Red Bull’s upgrade introduced in Imola looks like it “was a downgrade” that could cost it a lot of time, according to Mercedes’ technical director James Allison.

Ferrari and Red Bull both brought new components to the first race of the European season, following a major update from McLaren that propelled it into the fight for wins from Miami onwards. While Max Verstappen won in Imola, he was under severe pressure from Lando Norris and was then limited to sixth place in Monaco, and Allison still believes the car has strengths but has not been developed as effectively as its rivals.

“My guess is that as soon as there’s a decent range of cornering speeds, they will be useful again,” Allison said. “But it does look as if their upgrade was a downgrade, so fingers crossed that will really [screw] them up!

“That makes life hard because the moment you stop trusting your tools, you backtrack and you start losing time. Time is your biggest friend and losing it is your worst enemy … Everyone always loves other people’s misery in this game!”

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Alongside the added motivation of seeing Red Bull remain within closer reach for Mercedes, Allison says the past few rounds have shown signs of the team getting itself into a position where it could soon be battling for victories itself.

“I have to confess, I’m not really thinking of it in big picture terms, I’m just thinking where we are now appears to be somewhat better than where we were two races ago,” he said. “Hopefully it will be somewhat better in a couple of races from now.

“We’ve gone from being really embarrassingly crap or not good enough in the beginning of the year, to being near the fight. A little bit more will get us right in the melee and that’s really the only terms I think in.”

Allison explains those gains have come from addressing a weakness that emerged after improvements in low speed corners this season:

“I think we’re in the right ballpark [with ride height]. I would say the thing that has most bedeviled us this year is the high-speed understeer. We didn’t get a car balance to match the downforce we have found lower down, and that’s where we have been healing up a little lately.”

Mercedes’ Allison says ‘metronomic’ Antonelli looks very promising

James Allison says Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s potential looks to be very promising after showing “metronomic” pace for Mercedes in his Formula 1 tests so far. Antonelli (pictured above) is in his first season in Formula 2 but has been earmarked as a …

James Allison says Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s potential looks to be very promising after showing “metronomic” pace for Mercedes in his Formula 1 tests so far.

Antonelli (pictured above) is in his first season in Formula 2 but has been earmarked as a potential future F1 driver for Mercedes and tested for the team in 2021 and 2022 machinery over recent weeks. Team technical director Allison says he is not involved in decisions about drivers for next year — when a replacement for Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton needs to be found — but that the feedback from those running the tests has been positive.

“I have had the great pleasure of listening to the other engineers describe the interaction with him,” Allison said. “Just a young and enthusiastic driver, very, very fast. Metronomic in his pace, has not been in an F1 car until recently but made it look like he’d been in one for ages within a lap or two.

“Came at this generation of cars, the ground effect cars, with an open mind… He feels all the same things that you’d expect him to feel, but he’s not polluted by the previous cars, so he just takes them as they are and tells us what he’s feeling, it’s weaknesses and strengths, and let’s the engineers work to try and improve those things. He looks like a very promising young driver.”

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It’s not only drivers where Mercedes have been dealing with changes — following confirmation of Loic Serra and Jerome D’Ambrosio’s moves to Ferrari later this year — but with Mercedes bringing in personnel from Ferrari too. Allison isn’t concerned about the turnover.

“I think it’s more in the normal ebb and flow of an F1 team.” he said. “The teams are big these days and in any given year you are shipping out a whole bunch of people and shipping in a matching number. That will be true in nearly every team.

“Clearly, a team needs to have a critical mass of experienced and good people and we would not wish to see experienced, good people leave us. But we also are gathering experienced and good people at a similar rate. So I guess it’s our job to try and make sure we act in such a way as everybody would rather be with us than anywhere else.”

Mercedes has found fixes for ‘spiteful’ car problems – Allison

Mercedes technical director James Allison believes the team has made progress with resolving the biggest weaknesses with its previous cars ahead of the 2024 season. With the latest set of regulations, Mercedes pursued a ‘zero sidepod’ concept …

Mercedes technical director James Allison believes the team has made progress with resolving the biggest weaknesses with its previous cars ahead of the 2024 season.

With the latest set of regulations, Mercedes pursued a ‘zero sidepod’ concept initially before starting to converge towards the downwash design that is utilized by the rest of the grid, most effectively by Red Bull. After positive comments from Toto Wolff regarding feedback from the simulator, Allison says Mercedes believes it understands why it had problems with its previous cars and has addressed them heading into the new season.

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“It’s impossible at this time of year to be anything other than apprehensive, coupled with excited, coupled with frightened…” Allison said. “It’s just those are always the emotions that you feel and I would imagine that even in Red Bull after a year of of such good performance, they will not be sleeping easy in their beds either because no one knows what everyone else will deliver.

“However, what we do have some hope for is that some of the more spiteful characteristics of the rear end of our car will be a bit more friendly to us, and the handling of the car a happier thing. That’s all in simulation but nevertheless got reasonable grounds to believe that we’ve made some gain there.

“And then on top of that you’ve got all the normal housekeeping type stuff of just making it lighter, making it more downforcey, and hopefully getting a bit of uplift from the power unit side with the calibration level tinkering that they’re still capable of doing under these current rules.

“So whether it’s enough time will tell, but it’s nevertheless going to be interesting, because we saw some things we knew were problems, we have hypothesized what the reasons for those problems were. And we have fixed those reasons. It will be interesting to find out how accurate we’ve been with that diagnosis.”

However, Allison reiterates the fact that even if the new Mercedes proves to be much better for the drivers when it first hits the track, there’s no guarantee that puts it in the mix for victories.

“On the technical side at least, I don’t think any team has ever been anything other than apprehensive at this time of year, alongside excited or whatever. But I think you’d have to be psychotic to be bullishly confident, because you only know one side of the equation, which is what you’ve done.

“And there have been years where you’ve run a car for the first time and the drivers sort of got out and said ‘well spend your bonus, this is a brilliant one’. But even then you don’t really believe it until you get to the track and start using it in anger and everyone else is alongside you.”

2024 F1 field will be ‘busier’ at the front, Mercedes’ Allison predicts

Red Bull Racing can be caught and the fight at the front of the field is going to become even closer in 2024 given limitations of the current rules, according to Mercedes technical director James Allison. Red Bull won all but one race in 2023, …

Red Bull won all but one race in 2023, beaten only in Singapore where it endured a particularly uncompetitive qualifying session. Despite the level of consistency, Allison says it is clear the overall grid has been converging ever since the start of the current regulations, and that there’s a limit that everyone is likely to reach more quickly that could pull Red Bull back to the rest.

“I think Toto [Wolff, team principal] drew the comparison between climbing Everest and the challenge we have in front of us,” Allison said. “That’s a fairly apt comparison, because Everest is the sternest of challenges, but it is nevertheless, something that is possible to do.

“I think that’s how we’re taking this, as something which is where we are absolutely a challenger rather than a favorite. But nevertheless, we hope we’ve done a good job with the new car — we hope we’ve addressed some of the shortcomings that were so publicly on display with it last year.

“And there is also just a little bit that nestles in the back of our heads, which is that the rules themselves have a much more clear upper boundary to them in the amount of lap time these cars are capable of producing. Much more than the older generation of cars, which the more love you gave them and the more labor you put into them, the faster they got, seemingly without end.

“If you look at last year, you see, from the start of the season to the end of the season — although Red Bull’s dominance was near complete, and they didn’t look vulnerable even to the last race of the year — if you look at the bigger picture, this is a grid that is gradually compressing, and all the cars in Q1 were sort of squashed down within one second of each other.

“And that’s not coincidence. It’s a trend that has happened from 2022, continued in 2023, and I think will continue to show itself in 2024, because the gains are getting more and more asymptotic. I think therefore, that in addition to us I hope having worked well, my guess is it’s going to be relatively busier near the top of the grid this time around.

“If we are good enough to be in that fight, then operational things — driver excellence, the reliability of the car, the skill of the crews that service it — all of those things start to potentially become the differentiating factors. Hopefully there too we’ve given a good wash and brush-up to performances that were sometimes less than stellar last year.”

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After signing a new contract to remain with Mercedes as technical director, Allison says it’s still enjoyable to be trying to chase down Red Bull despite the success the team has been used to prior to the introduction of the current regulations.

“It actually is lots of fun!” he said. “It isn’t as much fun as winning, that’s definitely true. But you have to sort of love the whole of the sport, and the whole of the sport involves taking your licks when you haven’t done a good-enough job.

“One of the things to admire about Red Bull’s current performance is that they stuck gamely to their task in quite a long period in the wilderness and are now enjoying the fruits of that well-placed labor. And it’s far from unenjoyable being in that position, as long as the team is collectively confident that it’s making the right moves to try to re-establish itself as a force to be reckoned with.

“There’s loads and loads of fun to be had in that; it’s not expected to be linear or anything, it’s always a roller coaster of getting your hopes up, being slapped down and hit by the racing gods and then gathering your skirts again to have another push. I hope that that journey upwards is steep and strong and secure. But it will be great fun trying to drive it at whatever pace we can to give our rivals a good old fight.”

Allison signs contract extension with Mercedes

James Allison has become the latest team member to sign a contract extension at Mercedes, with the technical director committing his long-term future to the team. Originally joining as technical director in 2017, Allison went on to become chief …

James Allison has become the latest team member to sign a contract extension at Mercedes, with the technical director committing his long-term future to the team.

Originally joining as technical director in 2017, Allison went on to become chief technical officer at Mercedes for a spell, overseeing wider strategy and non-F1 projects. He returned to the role of technical director last year and says at the time he wasn’t thinking about the longer term but has now committed to an extension that he sees as important to show stability alongside team principal Toto Wolff’s recent new deal.

“I guess it wasn’t something that I thought about when he came back in that was more just instinctive, being asked if I could help and saying, ‘Yep!’” Allison said. “And then in the time that elapsed since, the desire to keep going with it, because it’s good fun and I hope I’m playing my part.

“I think it is definitely helpful for a team to know that it has stability, certainly a big deal for us to know that we have that stability with Toto and I hope in a smaller way that the folk here will be reassured to know that that’s the case.

“Less close to home, it helps with our partners as well to know that that is the case and means that everyone looking at us from the outside can see that there is stability and commitment to making the team able to work solidly and enjoy good success in the future.”

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Wolff says Allison is a key asset to Mercedes in a number of ways, as well as praising their personal relationship among the leadership team.

“I am thrilled that James has committed his long-term future to the team,” Wolff said. “Put simply, he is the most impressive technical leader in our sport. His gladiator spirit, along with his knowledge, experience, and determination, make him second to none. His influence and impact, however, goes so much further than that.

“Since joining in 2017, he has been a key ally and sparring partner for me personally. We can challenge each other openly and honestly, an embodiment of the ‘tough love’ culture of the team that is vital in helping us all perform at our very best.

“Most importantly, though, James is a true friend you can rely on, not only in times of success but in difficult moments too. It has been a pleasure to work with him over the past seven years and I look forward to doing so for many more to come.”

Mercedes can’t dwell on Red Bull defeat as it looks to recover – Allison

Mercedes needs to ensure it doesn’t lament how far behind Red Bull it has fallen in recent seasons in order to be able to recover as quickly as possible, according to technical director James Allison. Red Bull has dominated the last two years in …

Red Bull has dominated the last two years in Formula 1, winning 21 of 22 races in the season just gone while Mercedes failed to win a race for the first time since 2011. Having won the last of its eight consecutive constructors’ championships in 2021, Allison says the team will only face a longer wait to return to competitiveness if it focuses too much on past glories.

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“I think that as an organization if you have been at the top and you start to fall, there’s two ways of looking at that,” Allison told the Performance People podcast. “There’s a backwards-looking way of lamenting what you once were and sort of going ‘how could this have happened to us?’ … as a keening lament of ‘oh my God, this is all so terrible’ and ‘how could we have fallen so low when we were once so great?!’

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

“The sooner everyone can be on that page, A, the shorter the slump is and B, the more fun it is, because the sense of growing momentum is deeply joyful and the idea that you’re building the things that are going to allow you to walk around the paddock with your chest out at some point in the future, that’s a really energizing thing.

“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. And a lot of whether it’s depressing or exciting is how you choose to look at it.”

Whether Mercedes can be a winning force again in 2024 is something Allison is unsure of, but he says being in title contention is the target that the team has set itself despite the gap to Red Bull over the past two years.

“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 winning ways – does that mean winning a race [or] 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. So I hope that we will 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 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 enough, only time will tell, but that’s what I’m hoping for us and I know that all my colleagues and teammates around me will be hoping for the same.”

Mercedes has ‘clear idea’ of where to find 2024 improvements

Mercedes has “a very clear idea” of what it needs to fix with its 2024 Formula 1 car to be competitive against Red Bull next season and the team has been buoyed by the work being made toward achieving it, according to technical director James …

Red Bull’s domination over the past two seasons has come at a time where Mercedes has struggled under new technical regulations, changing its car concept mid-season. Currently second in the constructors’ championship, Mercedes faces competition from Ferrari and more recently McLaren this year, but Allison says the focus on 2024 has enabled the team to identify exactly what it needs to do in order to provide a clear step forward.

“I feel like all of us have got a pretty clear-sighted view of what we want to do with the car,” Allison said. “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. That makes next year very exciting to look forward to — and this period of the year extremely enjoyable.

“Over the years, most of the good cars that I’ve been lucky enough to be around when they’ve happened, the driver gets in it and doesn’t exactly say ‘spend your bonus’ but they more or less do. And unlocking potential is not really something that takes very long if the car is well-born. That will be the aim with this one.”

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As part of its work for next year’s car, Mercedes will introduce an upgraded floor at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix. While Allison says the new floor is likely to have some impact on current performance, it is more focused on longer-term goals.

“We’re bringing a modified floor … and hopefully it will give us a bit of lap time. But it is mostly a useful thing because it’s a bellwether for whether we’re on the right track,” he said. “In lap time terms, it will be small. Useful but don’t expect us to have leapt past Max (Verstappen).”

Mercedes ‘too cautious’ after difficult 2022 – Allison

Mercedes took a cautious approach to the changes in regulations for 2023 that proved to be the wrong direction, according to technical director James Allison. The phenomenon of porpoising – or bouncing – surfaced last year as a result of the new …

Mercedes took a cautious approach to the changes in regulations for 2023 that proved to be the wrong direction, according to technical director James Allison.

The phenomenon of porpoising – or bouncing – surfaced last year as a result of the new ground effect regulations that were introduced, leading the FIA to enforce changes to the floors to combat the issue this year. Allison says Mercedes had been understanding how to improve last year’s car as the season went on but then made a mistake in how careful it was with its new car over the winter.

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“Although we made great strides last year, 2023 presented all the teams with a rule change that offered some protection against bouncing,” Allison said. “Over the winter we faced a choice: Go aggressive and trade the bouncing protection in the rule change for performance, or take a more cautions route and steer clear of the sort of porpoising that wrecked our season last year.

“We chose the cautious path, knowing that it would be less painful to correct if we were wrong. The story of our year so far has been mostly about finding out that we had been too cautious and making the changes to correct that.”

That scenario has left Mercedes needing to make significant changes to its car mid-season, and Allison – who returned to the position of technical director in a role swap with Mike Elliott earlier this year – says the way the car responds in corners is also proving costly when it comes to lap time.

“Simply putting downforce on the car in the medium to high-speed area of the aero map (has been the area of biggest gain). That downforce is found closer to the ground than we had developed the car in the first instance.

“Bread and butter downforce is always a good thing. We are also trying to make the car more reassuring for the drivers when they initially turn in. It feels too reactive. And then when they get to the apex they have the opposite problem, where we want it to bite at the front and it doesn’t. It’s unstable when you first turn the wheel and then annoyingly dead when they get to the apex. We want it the other way around. That’s what we are working on.”

Allison returns as Mercedes technical director in role swap

James Allison will return to the role of Mercedes Formula 1 technical director nearly two years after leaving, switching positions with previous incumbent Mike Elliott. Mercedes has endured a tough two years under the new technical regulations, …

James Allison will return to the role of Mercedes Formula 1 technical director nearly two years after leaving, switching positions with previous incumbent Mike Elliott.

Mercedes has endured a tough two years under the new technical regulations, finishing third in the constructors’ championship last season and failing to reduce the gap to Red Bull this season despite confidence in its “zero-sidepod” approach. Allison was previously technical director from 2017 until mid-2021 when he took on the role of chief technical officer, handing overall control of the car design to Elliott.

At that point Allison moved into the position of chief technical offer, overseeing a wider array of projects including the America’s Cup collaboration with INEOS Britannia, but Elliott will now take on that position with Allison returning to the technical director role.

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While there was no official public announcement from Mercedes, a team spokesperson confirmed to RACER that the switch was communicated internally in recent weeks and will see Allison attending more races as a result, starting with the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

Team principal Toto Wolff recently confirmed there will be a number of upgrades brought to the 2023 car on a constant basis as the team looks to change approach as much as possible, having admitted it was “wrong” with its direction ahead of this year. Wolff added that the opening three races has seen the team identify “the right trajectory” for its development plan.

Mercedes is currently third in the constructors’ championship — nine points behind Aston Martin in second and 67 adrift of Red Bull — with just one podium, to its name so far this season, courtesy of Lewis Hamilton’s second place in the Australian Grand Prix.

Mercedes working on drivability during April break

Mercedes is working to bring upgrades to its suspension as well as aerodynamic changes during the April break, according to chief technical officer James Allison. A tough pre-season and opening race in Bahrain led to Mercedes instantly switching …

Mercedes is working to bring upgrades to its suspension as well as aerodynamic changes during the April break, according to chief technical officer James Allison.

A tough pre-season and opening race in Bahrain led to Mercedes instantly switching focus with the concept of its 2023 car, and team principal Toto Wolff was quickly optimistic about the progress being made in the wind tunnel. Now with a four-week gap between races, Allison – who is no longer actively working on the Formula 1 side of the business but remains chief technical officer – says the break will see a focus on trying to deliver a more driver-friendly car.

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“We will be doing the normal things,” Allison said. “We are working as hard as we can in the wind tunnel to find more downforce, we will be working as hard as we can in the drawing office to convert the things that the wind tunnel found a few weeks ago into performance that we deliver to the track.

“We will be working in the drawing office also to bring some mechanical parts to the car, some different suspension components that we think will help the underlying balance of the car and make it a more drivable thing, making it something that the drivers have more confidence to push right to the limits.”

However, Allison says just doing the right preparation for the challenging Baku circuit ahead of a sprint weekend is likely to be the key to a successful performance after the break.

“And we will be working on the normal sort of simulation loop and routine that allow us to prepare for the race weekends that are coming up, making sure that we land the car in the right place when we get to the race.

“That will be a big deal at Baku, it’s the first sprint race of the weekend. Sprint races really reward the teams that can land there with a starting setup that is pretty on the money and ready to go in qualifying because the time is really compressed in a sprint race weekend. Those are the things we will be working on and hopefully we work well and strong and have a good showing when we show up in Baku in just a few weeks’ time.”