F1 | Mercedes: the W15 doesn't take flight with the weakest wing

At Mercedes there is a certain disappointment: the Star is not shining as it would like after the first two GPs of the season. The W15 was supposed to be the Brackley team's comeback car, after two seasons with the W13 and W14 in the “zero pod” version. James Allison was called back by Toto Wolff to take back the reins of the technical department after having rejoiced with Mike Elliott: the English technical expert for the 2024 car started from a blank sheet of paper in the awareness of starting a project that went in the direction of convergence of solutions which are the most popular.

In fact, it cannot be said that Mercedes copied the Red Bull RB19, given that the black-silver arrow has retained some characteristics of its DNA. The ambition, after second place in the 2023 Constructors' World Championship, was to become Max Verstappen's challenger, but the events of the first two races have shown that this is not the case.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W15 in battle with Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell nailed Mercedes to fourth place among the teams, preceded by Ferrari and McLaren, as well as the elusive Red Bull. The picture, therefore, is very different from what they expected. In Bahrain, an overheating of Russell's power unit due to bellies that were too closed to have better aerodynamic efficiency forced the Englishman to reduce his pace (it was said up to half a second per lap!).

The episode may have cost Sakhir something, but the W15 showed its limits in Jeddah, a completely different track from Bahrain which was stop-and-go. In Saudi Arabia, Mercedes paid for more than 20 seconds from Leclerc's third-placed Ferrari. An abyss, also because the black-silver arrow finished sixth with George, preceded by two other Mercedes-powered single-seaters, Oscar Piastri's McLaren and Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin.

It is clear that the problem is not the F1 M15 E Performance power unit, but the difficulties concern the car which does not respond on the track as the technicians had decided in the wind tunnel and on the simulator.

As with the SF-24, Mercedes also suffers from a (greater) lack of downforce. In Maranello they tried to cover the deficit using the loaded rear wing seen in Bahrain. At Brackley, however, they had prepared a very simple version which should have given its results on the very fast Jeddah track, an atypical city with smooth asphalt.

George Russell, Mercedes W15

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

The W15, however, showed its limits precisely on a track on which it should have excelled: in the fast corners the two drivers suffered sudden losses in aerodynamic load which made the rear unstable and particularly unstable. In spite of Russell, who adapts to best drive the material made available to him, Hamilton tried to use the more loaded rear wing in the hope of balancing the car. The result was that he lost a lot of top speed and fell back in line with the choices of his younger teammate.

To make up for the lack of downforce, Showlin's staff tried to lower the car and the effect was that the W15 began to pump, re-proposing a defect that has almost disappeared on the other cars. In the end he was forced to find a compromise solution which, obviously, did not give the desired results.

It is not an easy situation: the W15 is a car that is destined to have a life that will extend into 2025 (next year's budget will mostly be allocated to the 2026 car which will be created due to the new regulations) and therefore will have to be found the key to improving the performance of a machine that is disappointing expectations. Mercedes has the human resources to find a solution, what is missing is time: when will we be able to see a B version that should realign the W15 at least to Ferrari? This is the question that Brackley will have to find an answer to…