Andrew Shovlin: Mercedes want to fight for wins in 2025

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' head of trackside engineering, provided these insights, revealing that while the team is making strides, challenges still remain.

The 2024 season began on a disappointing note for the Silver Arrows, as the W15 struggled to match the pace of its rivals.

However, Mercedes have shown a strong competitive resurgence in recent races, securing three victories out of the four preceding the summer shutdown.

This return to form has given the team a renewed sense of optimism as they look ahead to 2025.

Shovlin acknowledged that the team is still grappling with some of the weaknesses that plagued the W15 earlier in the season.

Despite this, the engineering team has yet to finalise several critical decisions about the components that will be carried over to next year's challenger.

"We will continue at the factory to find as much performance as we can. We're flat out trying to find performance," Shovlin told the media at the Belgian Grand Prix.

"We do want to be fighting at the front next year. So we're always going to make decisions that mean that that is a possibility. And then in terms of the wind tunnel, you've got the point at which you progressively shift resource from the current car to next year's car.

"I think probably every team has already started working on next year's car. But how rapidly you shift that resource over is a factor but teams may find that what works on this car works on next year's anyway, or vice versa.

"So it's not like the challenge we'll have in 2026, where it's a completely different beast."