James Allison hopeful 2024 Mercedes will be easier to drive
- Planet Sport writer
- 21 January 2024
Mercedes technical director James Allison admits it's impossible to tell how much impact their hard work over the off-season has had on their cars but he believes they have made several positive steps
The 2023 Mercedes challengers were famously uncomfortable to drive with and drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell voiced their discontent on numerous occasions throughout the season.
However, the team's engineers have been hard at work to remove some of the more "spiteful" elements at the backend of the car, which Allison says have been showing great results on the simulator.
The problem, though, is that does not always translate onto the track.
“It's impossible at this time of year to be anything other than apprehensive, coupled with excited, coupled with frightened," Allison told Motorsport.com.
“Those are always the emotions that you feel, and I would imagine that even in Red Bull, after a year 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 we’ve got reasonable grounds to believe that we've made some gain there.”
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