Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has revealed his team could need several upgrade packages to solve the problem of the W15 overheating its tyres. This would bring the solution date to the end of Lewis Hamilton’s time with the Silver Arrows.
The 2024 campaign has been a rollercoaster ride for Mercedes. The Brackley-based outfit started the year with the fourth-fastest car and were closer to Aston Martin than they were to the leading three contenders.
Hamilton and team-mate George Russell were visibly frustrated on a weekly basis, but after the Monaco Grand Prix, something clicked, and Mercedes began to unlock potential from the W15.
In the six races prior to the summer shutdown, Hamilton and Russell combined to collect three Grand Prix victories, two of which were earned on outright pace. Mercedes are now contenders for wins on a weekly basis, although they are still battling some considerable problems.
Discussing the team’s current situation, Shovlin explained:
“I think at tracks like Silverstone, we had a very stable rear end. In Austria and Budapest, we lacked stability. That’s all down to the fact that we seem to be putting more temperature in the tyres than the others.
“We know we need to work on that area. We’ve got plans to do that, but that’s not the sort of problem you can fix with a single aero update. It will be the result of quite a few developments to try and get on top of it.”
Mercedes’ struggles to get on top of their tyre temperature issues have sparked fears that the W15 could be producing lower levels of downforce, and therefore more rear sliding than rivals McLaren and Red Bull. However, their pace in Spa serves to debunk this theory.
“If you looked at Silverstone, in terms of how much downforce our car has got, it can’t be very different to the McLaren or the Red Bull because otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to gently pull away in the first stint,” Shovlin continued.
“So we don’t think that is the root cause of the issue. If you look at where people are running their cars now, they’re all converging on a pretty narrow window in terms of what drag level you target, and inherently what downforce you get from that.
“So I think we’re there or thereabouts in that regard. Obviously, that’s one of the key areas of development that will continue to keep giving. But it is an issue of just rear tyre temperature, and that’s where a lot of our focus is.”
