Red Bull 'won't be sleeping easy' as Mercedes allay fears over 'spiteful' problem
Red Bull dominated F1 in 2023 winning all but one of the 22 Grands Prix, but Mercedes are hoping to come back fighting in 2024.
Mercedes technical director James Allison has suggested that Red Bull ‘won’t be sleeping easy’ ahead of the 2024 season with the F1 grid expected to converge in terms of performances. The 55-year-old also offered an insight into his team’s development progress, claiming that they have solved the ‘spiteful’ rear-end problem of the W14.
Last season was a particularly frustrating one for Mercedes. The eight-time world champions doubled down on the ‘zeropod’ design concept this time last year, which proved to be an ill-fated decision and led the team to overhaul their development philosophy ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.
However, with Mercedes already on the back foot relative to their rivals, the damage was already done. Despite pipping Ferrari to second place in the Constructors’ Championship at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, the Silver Arrows ended the season without a single Grand Prix victory to their name.
Speaking to Motorsport.com about the upcoming season, Allison said: “It's impossible at this time of year to be anything other than apprehensive, coupled with excited, coupled with frightened.
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“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 nevertheless, we’ve got reasonable grounds to believe that we've made some gain there.”
Allison certainly believes in the future of the Mercedes F1 project. The team’s technical director put pen to paper on a new long-term contract in January, following in the footsteps of team principal Toto Wolff. Both key members of the team will be staying in Brackley until at least the start of the 2026 regulation period.
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Despite the progress, Allison wasn’t making any predictions about the extent of the success that Mercedes’ winter developments may bring. "Whether it's enough, time will tell,” he continued.
“But it's nevertheless going to be interesting because we saw some things we knew were problems. We have hypothesized what the reason for those problems were, and we fixed those reasons. It will be interesting to find out how accurate we've been with that diagnosis.”